mournblade-56441 How could you not like this? If your complaint is the idea's been done before then everything produced after Shakespeare is repetition, everything's a variation on a theme, and what a variation! Acting is superb, the adults are well known but the kids are amazing, both girls, and if the kids can't cut it in horror then you've lost it. But they go above and beyond, the youngest produces a perfect balance of both her characters, demon & child, and never muddles them or seems unable to deliver (where do they find these kids?). Nice minimalist use of effects, great story, first class production. The Jewish twist (every belief has evil) is brilliant & fresh. The box is a perfect vehicle as the center of creepiness. The small but important detail of the youngest girl's tears is poignantly terrifying as it reveals, when you think its only the demon, that she is still trapped in there... that was so subtle and incredibly effective. It even had a real jerk that gets his comeuppance... what more could you ask for?

fouregycats After The Exorcist, I find movies about possession to be unoriginal and tedious, and this one was no different.Add to it a very annoying character - the mother of the possessed girl, played by Kyra Sedgwick complete with the bitchy ex-wife thing going full speed, made me start walking away from the screen before the film was half over.But if you like this kind of thing, go for it. It's well produced and acted, with some minor gross-outs to keep it interesting. But it's mediocre to the end.

sussmanbern If you're a bit tired of the suggestion in the various demon possession flicks that only the Roman Catholic Church has the cure, then maybe this is the film for you. In THE POSSESSION we have the basics of The Exorcist, only in a Jewish vein. If you have not seen The Exorcist, and you see this first then you might consider The Exorcist a pale imitation. A little girl acquires, at a yard sale, a mysterious box. It contains a dybbuk - a wandering soul, an angry ghost, eager to inhabit and torment a living person. (The craftsman who produced this box for the movie evidently took the matter seriously enough that he spelled dybbuk backwards on the box, in Hebrew, as if there was a risk in labelling it so the ghost could read it.) Since the box was of Judaic origin, a rabbi is approached for a solution. .... We don't have heads spinning around but it is nice to know that Hebrew prayers are just as efficacious as Latin ones.There is a hint, at the end, of a sequel - but maybe not.

quincytheodore The Possession has done only one thing well: it follows the formula of "Look at that piece of possibly cursed box of questionable origin, there's no way it has some demonic entity that will make my life miserable". Everything plays out predictably, there are no surprises or twists, and the worst of all, it's not even scary. The movie is just annoyingly loud and poorly edited, I'd advise you use your money to watch the kiddie CG movies instead, they won't suck as much as this.Look at the poster above, you'll be seeing some people puke moths, hands and even a Gollum. This trick is done so many times, it loses any suspense and resembles more of an eating disorder. Plot has a bit of value in the beginning as the family is in post-divorce aftermath, their relationships been fractured and set for harder situation to come. The sisters are good addition, since they look identical which might show how both of them cope with the possession, respectively. Instead, you'll be bombarded with series of gibberish that comes of that bloody box, things being broken in maximum volume and someone is always screaming.I get the necessary blast of volume in horror movies, but this is just ridiculous in every levels, as if they are saying "HEY, IT'S SCARY! LOOK, SO SCARY!" every five minutes. At some point, I prepare myself for the next attempt of blowing my ear drums off, it's not even unintentionally funny anymore. There's also telekinesis parts where people are seemingly break dancing or doing lousy acrobatic while the soundtrack is trying so hard to hum unpleasant effect to convince the audience. Play dubstep remix instead and you have a hip hop dance video.It's also unfortunate that the movie's editing is sometimes choppy, it could use more time to emphasis some scenes further and establish more ground for the build the next fright, instead they dwell longer on the divorce issue. It's a good concept for background, but it gets stale and offers only more excuses for people screaming at each other. It doesn't help that it uses every-so-cliché flashing lights, coupled that with the blaring audio, it's a torment to your senses.If you like girl throwing tantrum because their parents are separated, seeing her gorging food to make herself obese and watching the parents watch Youtube videos with cinematic overly loud volume, still don't watch this. I honestly can't find any reason to recommend it, I actually would give it lower score if not for the "Based on true story" remark, because I don't want to mess with the creepy Dybbuk.