What I am excited about, truly, is Gabriel's recently re-discovered enthusiasm for Mickey Mouse, Honeycomb, and his desire to try new things - like bacon!
Don't mess with a dybbuk, is what seems to be the moral of The Possession, an effective little PG-13 horror film. The dybbuk (the malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore) resides in the dark wooden box picked up by young Em (Natasha Calis) at a yard sale. It doesn't take long for the creepy spirit in the box - displaced soul looking to inhabit an innocent host - to take over Em, and she starts doing odd things, including stabbing her father with a fork (in a creepy scene that is oddly never again mentioned or referred to).
The movie shares a lot in common with co-producer Sam Raimi's 2009 film Drag Me to Hell (also PG-13): a well-maintained mood of unease, effective low-budget effects, tension garnered from what is not seen as opposed to what is, tongue-in-cheek humor. Director Ole Bornedal ropes in a good performance from Jeffrey Dean Morgan (looking more than ever like Javier Bardem) as the single, recently-separated father (ex-wife Kyra Sedgwick has sorta moved on) at a loss as to what has taken over his father. The Hebrew reggae/rock musician Matisyahu has a crucial role as the rabbi called upon to guide the spirit back into the box.
There are a lot of questions arising from the story that you would be best to set aside and never return to. Julia and I? We had a good time with it. It's a lot of fun and there are some choice moments, including what is one of the eeriest images of an occupied uvola that you'll ever see.
And, yes, there is room for a sequel.
And, yes, 'dybbuk' would be a great Scrabble word.
*
Consider it high praise or not, but Orlando Bloom does his best work ever in the little-seen The Good Doctor (2012) as a new resident at a Southern California hospital who becomes infatuated with a patient (Riley Keogh, daughter of Lisa Marie Presley) and starts tinkering and fiddling with her medications so that she will have to stay in the hospital. Leaning towards the dull, the movie works in fits and starts - though it feels longer than its 90-minute runtime - and is populated by actors with not enough to do: J.K. Simmons (as a detective), Troy Garity, Taraji P.Henson, Rob Morrow (dryly ragged and amusing), Michael Pena. Not so much a thriller as an understated - too understated to be much fun - piece about a lonely man who isn't getting the respect he long-thought a doctor would and should deserve, it nevertheless provides evidence that Bloom should be cast more often as creepy guys.
Book reviews tomorrow!
Images courtesy of:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NQakch-0t40/UD692zQsVsI/AAAAAAAACrA/PeRCGyyj6x8/s1600/the-possession-movie.jpg
http://2012.riverrunfilm.com/sites/default/files/films/Good_Doctor_The.JPG
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