Bob's Look: 1st film of the Halloween season 2012: The Possession

During the Halloween season, which for horror hounds like me starts Sept. 1st, I try to catch most, if not all, horror films in theaters before Oct. 31st. The first film of the season for me is The Possession.
A young girl dealing with the divorce of her parents buys an antique wood box at a yard sale, and after she succeeds in cracking the puzzle to open it, her behavior and demeanor begin to change in a violently malevolent way. The girl’s father seeks to answer the question “what’s wrong with my daughter?” and soon learns that the box is at the center of her transformation. He learns that what his daughter bought was called a dybbuk box and it was built to contain a demon, and opening the box released the dybbuk who now possesses the young girl. The father calls upon his ex wife and a jewish spirituallist in order to save his daughter from the evil spirit.

This is a pretty basic demon possession movie with the added twist of Jewish demon lore taking the place of the usual Catholic demon lore. The film has a decent scare factor with minimal bloodshed (it’s rated PG-13) and the characters are well developed without relying too heavily on horror movie family clichés, such as feuding siblings, one good sister and the other is a raging slut, dad’s a drunk, or mom is dead. But they did use the cliché of the broken home. Special effects are kept to a minimum relying more on ambiance and atmosphere to scare the audience, which has it’s ups and downs. Overall, this is a decent horror film for fans of the demon possession sub-genre.
There were several things that went through my head while watching this film as a horror fan. First of all, this was supposedly based upon a true story. There was a television show that documented a case involving a dybbuk box, but it had nothing to do with a family or anyone becoming possessed by the demon. That’s not to say that there wasn’t such a case, but I haven’t seen anything resembling the plot of this film. “The Amityville Horror” turned out to be based on a gigantic hoax, and “The Fourth Kind” was quickly debunked, so I tend to look at the phrase “based on a true story” with a skeptical eye. Of all the things in horror to bring up disbelief, I know.
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but one of my problems with Hollywood horror is that they apparently do not know the difference between disturbing and annoying. For example, there are a couple of scenes in the movie involving the possessed girl eating food; one where she is eating pancakes and is stuffing them like there is no tomorrow, and another where she is in a diner eating french fries. In both scenes, the sound of her chewing the food is greatly augmented, and it the pancake scene, here open mouth is stuffed with chewed food while she stabs her father’s hand. I did not find these scenes scary or disturbing, I found them annoying. There was a similar scene in the remake of “The Omen” a few years ago where the nanny is feeding Damien strawberries (at least I think they were strawberries) and the sound of his chewing was greatly augmented in an attempt to unsettle the audience. A word to Hollywood film makers, this is not scary, disturbing, or unsettling. It is just plain irritating, and it is just plain insulting to horror hounds.
Okay, I admit, I like the horror films that are hard to find outside of online shops. So you would think that I would hate Hollywood horror films. Well, it’s true that they don’t do as much for me as more obscure titles. And I am a little sad that Columbus, Ohio doesn’t get some of the smaller run horror films. But, I’m open minded enough to give any movie a fair chance. Like I said, this film was pretty decent, and I’ll probably grab it when it comes out on disc. But horror hounds are, believe it or not, picky about our movies. We know where to suspend disbelief for our entertainment and when to say “what kind of an idiot pulls this shit?” As a horror hound, I would recommend this movie for fans of demon possession films and people who want to watch a scary movie but are easily frightened.