Review of The Possession (2012) by Joe J — 04 Feb 2013

Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his wife Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) are recently divorced, and he gets custody of his two young daughters Em (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport) on the weekends. Everything seems to be cordial until he gets a box at a garage sale. Em loves the box, but it seems to be transforming her into something different.

As strange events begin to occur, and unexplained deaths begin to happen, Clyde researches the box and finds that it's not just an ordinary box - it's a Dybbuk box, which, according to Jewish belief, holds the spirit of a demon inside it.

Now Clyde is racing against time to get this demon out of his young daughter before it takes over her completely.

I'm a big fan of religious studies, and the Dybbuk box is a fascinating object. There's a mini documentary in the extras in the movie that talks about a man who owns a Dybbuk box, and the strange happenings that occurred while he had it, and those who had it before him. Unfortunately, this was far more interesting than the actual film, which turned out to be a typical paint-by-numbers supernatural thriller where nothing much is remembered after it ends. It wasn't a bad film, but it wasn't great.