BriarProse: February 2014

Well, well, well another exorcism film starring an innocent girl. But this time the director makes a (good) decision to take us back to a child instead of a teen scream queen. This works in the film’s favor, I must say.

For the second installment of Possession Flicks reviews, I will discuss 2012’s The Possession, directed by Ole Bernadel.

PG13 Horror films puzzle me. In a genre that is essentially composed of mature, disturbing content, intentionally lowering a rating to get more teens in the theater seems like a degrading choice on filmmaker’s parts. Not because a horror movie “should” be rated R but because PG13 creates limits on the creative canvas. I have a feeling it would not have made much of a difference in a movie like this and I am grateful for no gratuitous gore but I am still puzzled by teen-friendly horrors.

Fun for the whole family.

THE SYNOPSIS: The story follows a father’s attempts to free his young daughter from the grip of a demon. After buying a mysterious box at an ominous yard sale, the girl soon becomes obsessed with the object which she alone could figure out how to open. While her father, recently divorced from her mother, tries to save Emily (yes, her name is Emily—I’ll get to that), the box continues to consume and “talk” to Emily causing her to act out violently and strangely.

HERE BE SPOILERS. While this serves as a review of the film it is also an analysis and to analyze I have to go through some spoiler territory so if you do not want the ending revealed, I advise you watch it first and then come back.

PLOT SUMMARY:

The film opens with the statement that this is based on a true story and I immediate preceded to knock off points. Why do I dislike this so much in Possession Flicks? That is a subject for another day.

The movie wastes no time in showing us the box that shall fall into little Emily’s possession (Oh! Look! Clever title is clever. No, actually. I like this First she possesses the box then the box possesses her. Get it?)

A woman is about to take to the box with a hammer and holy water (just in case) when her eyes roll back and the demon beats the ever loving hell out of her. Of course, we cannot see the demon. But there is no subtly here. We realize that this box either contains a demon or a pissed off ghost that does not want you hammering her box.

Meet What’s-His-Name.

He didn't do a bad job at acting or anything, I just don't CARE about the character!

Hold on. I can’t do a review if I don’t remember the main protagonist’s name. Apparently his name was Clyde. I feel bad for forgetting such an interesting character’s name.

That was harsh. Let me apologize. There is nothing wrong with Clyde. In fact, that is my problem with Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). What do I know about Clyde? Clyde is a basketball coach. Clyde has two daughters, a young teenybopper Hannah (Madison Davenport) and Emily (Natasha Calis) who are fairly realistically portrayed as girls who just went through a divorce. But why should I care about Clyde? Clyde is fine. He might still love his ex-wife. But why do I care? She might still love him, but she’s dating some dentist dork who seems to enjoy telling Hannah she has bad teeth. What the hell? This guy sounds like a creep. Show me a movie about creepy stepdad obsessed with teeth. Clyde’s doing okay. Why is this about Clyde? Because a demon fucking with Dentist Guy’s mind would have been more interesting. (MISSED OPPORTUNITY #1. This movie is full of these, so get used to me counting them off).

Anyways, Clyde and uh…Nicole? Stacey?...It started with an S I think. Stephanie! Yes, Clyde and Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) were recently divorced. Whoop dee dee do. Apparently the girls are on a health diet and pizza is not allowed. Emily is a young vegetarian and wants no harm to befall animals. Alright. Now we’ve got some character traits. Let’s see where this goes.

Wait a minute. Emily?

EMILY!?

That’s what they name this movie’s demoniac?

Claus takes his girls to his new house, which Emily seems to like and Hannah dislikes on the grounds that it’s “In the middle of nowhere.” Though, really…it isn’t. The next day he decides to take the girls to a yard sale which, for some fucking reason, the box is being sold at. Emily is immediately enamored by the box. Who wouldn’t be, actually? It’s covered in Hebrew phrases and seems to be an antique. However, Clyde does not see anything odd about this and allows her to take it home. Before leaving, however, Emily spots the woman from the opening scene lying in bed covered with bandages. The woman notices the child holding the box and desperately slams a hand against a window, screaming. A nurse pulls down the curtains because clearly the sight excited the patient and that is bad for recovery. (I suppose she has a story of her own. One more interesting than Clyde’s.(MISSED OPPORTUNITY #2)

The minute the girls and daddy get home things become tense. Objects are being thrown around in the kitchen and the girls huddle together in fear. Though it was probably only a raccoon that got through the doggy door, the scene still sets the mood for what is to come. Because her father cannot open the box, they conclude that it was not “meant to be” opened. But that night, whispers draw the little girl to it and she figures out how to open it all alone. (My theory is that the demon specifically wanted only her to open it). Within she finds a human tooth, a dead moth and a ring. She sees nothing strange about this—even though she dislikes seeing a dead moth later on—and puts the ring on her finger.

First off: ew. Human tooth. Not suspicious at all. Am I to buy that just because she is young, this does not strike her as odd? Or is this demonic influence? Whispering softly to her a reasonable explanation for a human tooth? I will buy the latter. The demon’s influence on the innocence of a child is more plausible than Emily being a moron. (See? I can be nice to cliché movies.) The next morning, a moth appears in Hannah’s bed to create the necessary “fake out scream” of the movie. Because girls are afraid of bugs, right? They all let out bloodcurdling screams that could be mistaken for a demon assault. Well, Claudio smashes the moth, causing Emily to exclaim “DAAAAAAAADDDDDuuuh!” because he harmed an animal. “Sorry honey. Moths are bad people.” (Paraphrasing here.)

Again, the movie wastes no time in getting to the “good stuff” that people like in possession films. Emily begins to act out violently. She mentions not feeling like herself to Hannah. At dinner one night she stabs her father in the hand with a fork, completely unprovoked. This scene works effectively because she apologizes and cries directly after, creating a sense of dual personalities rather than relying on having a child actor scream profanities and do violent things. Still, she worsens and begins to spend much of her time staring into the box’s mirror. If that was not odd enough, huge swarms of moths begin to appear in her room. But the bug exterminator is able to rid the house of its demonic infestation rather quickly.

Emily is seen in the bathroom later on, feeling as if she will gag. What will she throw up?

A. Pea soap

B. Blood

C. A moth

Well, actually, none of those things.

A HAND ALMOST CRAWLS OUT OF HER THROAT.

Then, she is frightened but goes back to bed. (I wish I was joking.)

I take it back. Emily is a moron. If I saw a hand crawling out of my throat at that age, I would not go back to sleep. Even if I was possessed by a demon. There is only so much leeway I can give to a kid.

At school, some random asshole kid in class tries to steal the box from Emily. For no apparent reason, he also makes fun of her over it and she shoots out of her desk and wipes the floor with his ass, screaming in usual possessed girl fashion. The teacher consults Clyde and Stephanie about the situation, reporting that Emily has become antisocial and increasingly violent. Has she really or is the teacher just going off of this one incident? The world shall never know. But the three agree that the box is a bad influence and the teacher keeps it in her classroom for a night so Emily can spend some “time away from it.” When the demon in the box begins whispering the teacher rightfully becomes curious. The demon then proceeds to do the funniest thing in this movie.

The teacher is beat up and thrown around like a Muppet before being sent through a window to her death. (Less would have been more, really. All we had to see was the teacher fly through the window. Instead we go into Scary Movie territory.)

After the teacher’s death, Emily begins to act more out-of-character, callous towards the death and obsessive about an invisible woman who lives in the box. The woman tells Emily she is “special” and is her “friend.” Because he is not a complete imbecile, Clyde realizes that this is not normal, healthy behavior for his child. So he does one of the sanest things I have seen in a horror movie in a long time: he throws the fucking thing away!

You did a horror movie smart thing!

Emily is not pleased. She cries to have been separated from her invisible friend. Clyde will not tell her where it is, because that would be stupid. But the demon pulls an ace out of its sleeve. It slaps Emily but makes it look as if Clyde had done so. The little girl, probably as confused as her father, flees the house in search of the box. Somehow, she finds her way to the box in the dumpster, likely led by its demonic influence. This time when she opens it, it is rather heartbreaking when she confesses that she does not think her father likes her anymore. Every good demon needs to know how to prey off of a child’s naivety, so the demon uses this to her advantage. They “speak” for a while, with the demon’s voice making the scene, a soft almost funny-sounding whisper that seems to be pushing Emily a bit too far this time. But a swarm of moths appear and fly into the girl’s mouth before she faints. Clyde manages to find her and carry her home but his ex-wife and Hannah are there to take her away from him. For the children’s safety, Clyde is given a restraining order. Understandable, considering that the three of them think he smacked the girl.

Clyde, now wise to the demon’s game, takes the box to a professor who is enthusiastic about it. Yet another character who is more interesting than Clyde. (MISSED OPPORTUNITY #3). The professor tells him that the box was used to contain a dybbuk, a dislocated evil spirit which “clings” to a living host. Since this is a Jewish evil, Claus will need a Jewish ritual, right? Whether he is Jewish or not is unclear, but he grabs a Torah and sneaks into his ex-wife’s house. There he finds Emily in bed. She stares at him, reticent.

The Torah triggers dybbukim PTSD. Much the way It's A Small World After All triggers those of us who grew up the '90s. Or is that just me?

Time to read to Emily from the Torah. I suppose this was a test to see what happens… The dybukk does not feel like Torah Time and shoots the book at the wall, sparing no force in the process. (I mean, DAMN! It does not just fly out of his hands, it shoots out. I am surprised the wall was not cracked. I like this demon!)

Stephanie steps into her house to find that her ex-husband has broken his restraining order and is rightfully pissed. He runs off. That’s about all that comes of this. He’s not arrested, not questioned. He just runs off. (Forgivable on the screenwriter’s part, the film is already long).

Anyways, Clyde takes the cursed box to a Hasidic community for more info. A Jewish man named Tzadok (Matisyahu) knows his shit. So well, in fact, that he realizes the mirror in the box is concealing the name of the demon. Tzadok is actually kind of a badass. He punches the mirror with his bare hand and finds the name, causing Clyde to swear “Jesus Christ!” Funny, considering that it will not be Christ aiding in this ritual. It is explained that this dybbuk is called Abysou, “taker of children.” Metal.

So since the third stage of the possession will allow Abysou to latch onto Emily and forge as one, it is important to get the fucker out before demon-child melding occurs. “It wants what it cannot have.” That being “life.” (More about Dybbuk folklore and legend later).

Meanwhile, in the life of Stephanie, Hannah, Emily and that creepy dentist boyfriend (Brett), Hannah screams for her mother when she finds Emily doing the second funniest thing in the movie.

EATING RAW meat!

No, Emily! That was an animal once!

Oh the horror! Of eating meat! Out of a refrigerator!

She turns from the fridge on all fours with the meat in her mouth and it is hilarious.

Remember that scene in Emily Rose? Love it or hate it, but you must admit that worked better than this. Why this scene works is that she is eating insects, not food from the fridge. She is also praying in a tortured voice, hoping to be delivered from evil. She is forced into eating vermin. And when she turns and screams she looks pathetic. (Sure, the scene can also be kind of funny. But it does not take you out of the horror of the moment. Only with a snickering cynicism can you find Emily’s eating roaches funny). Here, Em eating meat out of a fridge on all fours just looks like parody of a horror scene. The build up is far too dramatic for what we see, which is more bizarre than it is scary.

She and her mother fight around the kitchen. Emily seizes a shard of broken glass and jumps at her mother with it but drops it before she can do any damage. She asks “Who am I?” Mister I’m-The-Man-of-the-House-Now (Brett) says that Emily should be taken to see someone. No, really? So the next day they are preparing to leave for the hospital but the dybbuk whips up some winds, stares at Brett and causes his teeth to fall out of his face.

American Horror Story: Gingivitis

He jumps into his car and bravely drives off, never to return. Before this can become hilarious, Emily has a seizure and Hannah and Stephanie are left to deal with all alone, without the help of big strong man. That’s just like a guy, isn’t it? A girl becomes possessed by one little demon and he runs off. They take her to the hospital where she has an MRI. In the X-Ray, right beside her heart, is a demonic visage. (Silly but also fun…)

"Your daughter's tumor is large and also an asshole. It winked at us."

Clyde and Tzadok arrive at the hospital to perform an exorcism. The family offer belongings and hair to give the exorcism strength. Then they just… do the exorcism.

Right there.

In the hospital.

And no doctors or nurses make any protests whatsoever. Emily yells “Shut up” at one point and a kitten cried. (Maybe Abysoul is just not a potty mouth like most of the demon lot.) Emily flees into the hospital morgue (which is also unsupervised). The demon must have hit a bump in her record player human-imitation voice for Emily because she repeats “Daddy you scared me,” several times in the exact same tone before jumping on Clyde and attempting to strangle him. Clyde screams for the demon to take him instead. Which I suppose would be heroic if it made a lick of sense to ask the “Child Taker” to take you, an adult, instead.

For some fucking reason, the demon obliges Claus and he is now possessed. We know because he makes the Judge Doom eyes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Tzadok is forced to exorcise him instead of Emily.

Actually, Judge Doom wipes the floor with most horror movie demons these days. You know shit your pants for this scene when you were eight.

The demon crawls out of him and claws her way back to the box. Literally.

Here’s a shot.

Interesting.

Gollum watching this scene. I hear she's single.

Then, for reasons more inexplicable than putting an unholy item in a yard sale or leaving your child host for a lousy adult one, the family is magically back together.

Stephanie and Clyde’s “love is rekindled” (according to IMBd) and they are having a happy dinner. Then Comet the dog jumps on Emily’s lap and the Full House theme plays. And they all lived happily ever after…

What is worse is that Tzadok, the badass Jewish exorcist, is driving away with the box, telling Clyde over the phone that he will store it somewhere safe.

And a truck hits him. (Devil Inside much?)

Then for some other fucking reason, the box has landed, far, far away from the wreck, unscathed. We then hear Abysoul singing softly inside.

WHY DID YOU KILL TZADOK? You had a potential for a slightly better sequel there! We have not seen a Jewish exorcism series yet!

Alright on to the score.

POSSESSION FLICK SCORE BOARD:

Cliché Board

1. Victim: Young, White, Female, Helpless- check

2. Horrors of the Female Form: Nope

3. Projectile Vomit: if you count the moths. Check
Cliche Demon Voice: Not really

5. Mental Illness is Scary (Ah!): Nope

6. Troubled Non-believer and/or Science vs. Faith: none!

7. Potty Mouth Demon: Nope. Worst she says is “shut up.”

8. Whisper Lewd Things to Me, Satan (Horrors of Female Sexuality): Nope. Remember, PG13.

9. Demonic Verbal Battery: No, not really. Unless, again, “shut up!” counts.

1 The Devil Does Yoga (+ if in a pretzel): seizure but not really.

1 Spider Walk: Nope.

1 Imitating Emily Rose: SHE’S NAMED EMILY. CHECK.

Other Points Off:
Creepy little girl, a la Samara Morgan.

1 Based On a True Story: uh-huh. Sure. This story? (dybukk box: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dybbuk_box ). The one where a haunted box was bought on E-bay? I’ve seen creepypastas written by 13-year-olds that have more atmosphere than that bullocks.

1 Laughable Special Effects. Eyeball rollbacks were good but elsewhere it was lacking.

1 No real sense of dread
1 Disney bullshit ending in a horror movie. I refuse to believe that a divorced couple will come back together because they exorcised a Jewish demon from their daughter and now everything is magically alright.

1 Underwhelming finale.

1 No need for the car crash. Having the demon in the box singing would have been sufficient for us to know that the threat is not over

Grace Points

1. Demon is formidable and doesn’t shit around with just saying lewd things and thrusting.

2. Non-catholic exorcism. Interesting.

3. The dybbuk does not play around by knocking things over and doing parlor tricks. She attacks and usually when she does it’s formidable.

4. A few memorable images.

5. Apparently female persona of a demon that is not a succubus. I give points to that.

6. Dybbuk’s voice was not outwardly demonic. More bizarre than anything else.

Cliché Count: 3 major ones out of 12. Not bad.

Skipped Cliches: 9! Impressive for a film like this.

Other Negative points: 19

Grace points: 6.

FINAL SCORE: Not cliché but nothing new to offer, and simply bland.

Not terribly clichéd. But bogged down by its mediocrity. There was an attempt being made but he characters are hollow and not once does the atmosphere, acting or story exceed expectation. This is a low, low C.

As a rule in most horror films, and especially in a PG13 one like this, YOU CANNOT KILL A CHILD. So all real suspense was gone. I also pretty much knew the father was not going to die either. Though he tries to pull a Father Karras and take the demon into himself he is instantly exorcised. So that was rather pointless. It was nice to skip the tried and over-rehearsed “convince the non-believer of the Devil and therefor of God” script, but Clyde did accept a bit too quickly that his daughter was possessed by the dislocated evil spirit of Jewish lore. While I enjoyed this particular demon’s display of power and mind-tricks, I never felt much of personality. The name apparently means “child-taker?” But why? It would have been more fascinating to explore the lore of this particular demon. Perhaps there will be a sequel which can expand on the potential of this mediocre (not good, not bad) horror movie.

If you want a “safe” horror movie that won’t make you think too much, here it is. Or if you want one you can watch with your 13-year-old sibling, I suppose, this would be a good one. I would rate it lower but I can feel the effort under the surface, it simply did not come together to concoct the brew of a truly scary or interesting horror movie.

Also, if there is a sequel, film makers. Please don’t make it about Clyde McBlandPants. Because now I actually do remember his name from having to carry out that “Ha! she can’t remember his name!” joke for a whole review.

Read more about the “dibbuk box” here!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dybbuk_box

Read more about actual dybbuk lore here!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dybbuk