It may come off as vaguely ironic to some that a column named after food from a pig would be the one to cover a Jewish horror film. That’s fully understandable, but I hope that you’ll allow me this one indulgence. This film caught my curiosity, t was on Netflix streaming just a year after its release, so fresh in my memory that I remembered the advertising campaign and decided to give this Hebrew take on an exorcism movie a chance.

Moths. Not that scary.

Starring is the charming Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Playing Clyde, and who viewers will remember as “The Comedian” from the Watchmen film) and young actor Natasha Calis (Playing Em,) who really surprised me and did a good job in this one. I highlighted those two because they certainly were the best part of this film, although the rest of the cast was either poor or unmotivated to the point where it was incredibly imbalanced. It takes a hell of an acting job to work with a weak and uninspiring script, as was the case in this film.

With the help of some CGI

While the sales pitch for this project was most certainly “Let’s have a Jewish possession film,” it does little to add to the genre. It isn’t altogether scary as a whole, little time or energy was spent on originality or new concepts to keep the audience on their toes, and you’ll find yourself feeling as though you’ve seen this one already before. There is a scene with an MRI machine which was pretty cool, but like the rest of the film was shockingly predictable.

The logic is loose and the storytelling is even worse. Everything has been given a single layer of paint, such that you’ll find yourself wondering about why a character suddenly ran away, never to be seen again without real explanation, or why there is a group of traditional Jews in New York City who can instantly recognize a possession box from an ordinary one. They also seem to know about these sort of spiritual anomalies and haven’t bothered to share that knowledge with anyone else, even the scientific community. Even worse, when confronted with the possibility of an unholy demon taking the body of a young girl and walking the earth, this wise council decides that apathy is the correct course of action. “A bi gezunt”

Because it’s free, and because October is a long month, it might be worth your time to watch this if your budget is tight and you’re not really familiar with possession movies. But, in a time when The Conjuring came out so recently, it might be worth your time to invest a couple bucks and rent the thing, when it is released.