Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Tim Brayton, our seasoned film critic, shares a more critical view of film, an appreciation for vintage cinema and perhaps limited-release movies that we might otherwise miss. Summary: Steeped in ancient Jewish lore and demonology, The Vigil is supernatural horror film set over the course of a single evening in Brooklyn's Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Find all 13 songs in The Vigil Soundtrack, with scene descriptions. And what is truly beautiful is in the way the film ends. However, I still enjoyed the movie, and would highly recommend it. Getting Away With It: Mads Mikkelsen and Anders Thomas Jensen on Riders of Justice, Sun-Kissed Tension: On the Staying Power of Deray’s La Piscine, Ambitious Jupiter’s Legacy Examines Changing Definition of Heroism. Cast : Dave Davis, Lynn Cohen, Menashe Lustig, Predictions for this year's Academy Awards from our very own Critic in Residence! It has some very intriguing aspects and a solid cathartic ending. His limbs crack unnaturally and he sometimes buckles under the strain of an unseen presence, whose hands bulge out of the walls like the ones in “Repulsion,” and whose face is as featureless as a reflection. This is a place for people who can't get to the theater until the third week a film is out; a place for people who just want to find something great to stream online after the kids have gone to sleep, a place for people whose favorite pastime is to grab a bunch of classic films on DVD from the library and watch them all weekend. Playing it safe when it comes to endings … We’re two dudes, and a lady, of which our tastes are quite varied. The Vigil is a good film with decent performances and just enough atmosphere to keep you entertained, maybe even keep you guessing. Parts of “The Vigil” hint at a deeper consideration of passing and self-loathing during early conversations with Shulem; I especially like that they only part ways once Shulem asks Yakov if he’s going to be ok, and Yakov throws the word “ok” back at Shulem like an unexpected bill ... then Shulem sends it back with a shrug: “Ok!” Beyond that, there’s only a blank murkiness about the ol’ Litvak house, for reasons that are also rather vague. And while The Vigil never loses sight of its aim of scaring the audience, it never … This isn't a site for people who just want to talk about the latest hot new movies in theaters right this minute. Does it matter? To see the Instagram feed you need to add your own API Token to the Instagram Options page of our plugin. The Vigil lacks....stuff. Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. The Vigil (2019) - Alternate Ending : Alternate Ending. If this was my first go, I wouldn't be complaining. We want to celebrate our different opinions, and celebrate yours as well. This sort of paint-by-numbers horror narrative barely scratches the surface of the heavy issues it alludes to, especially during the above-mentioned flashback, which suggests that Yakov doesn’t know how to synthesize his dual identity as a Jew and an American. He’s steeped in clichés about how secular Millennials see the world—they text and FaceTime with each other, sometimes in the dead of night!—and how that shapes their limited perspective. There’s also the pushy but maybe sincere Hasidic Rabbi Shulem (Menashe Lustig), the guy who got Yakov this white elephant of a gig; Shulem basically leaves the picture once he’s set everything up. But Yakov submits to these neurotic trials anyway, because “for thousands of years, religious Jews have practiced the ritual of 'the vigil’,” as the movie’s solemn opening crawl tell us. The film shocks and scares pleasantly on its way to a solid if not loose ending. Visit Tunefind for music from your favorite TV shows and movies. The movie also relies on the usual jump scares every now and then while the ending feels somehow anticlimactic, especially given its promising setup and all the creepy teases earlier on. The movie is based around the tradition of Shemira or, in Hebrew, שמירה, translating to 'watching' or 'guarding'. Movie Review: The Vigil. “The Vigil” almost masquerades as a horror movie when it’s really a personality study about rebuilding one’s identity out of forgiveness, faith, and companionship. This removes a certain sense of the invasion of personal space, even if the film turns out to be good at the end. Point being: Yakov’s the guy, and we see this later on when he inevitably arms himself with his tefillin, a protective link to the past (as described in Exodus) that he wraps around his forearm and forehead before delving deeper into the Litvaks’ home. There is a deep emotional core to the film that adds depth to the plot while also driving the the fear the evil entity brings to the surface. A synthesizer score complements Yakov’s transformation and confirms his re-emergence as an avenging hero, like Jewish Rambo, only with a leather strap instead of a Bowie knife. But for that to be true, you’d have to find something scary about Yakov’s haunted behavior. ... For a things-that-go-bump movie, The Vigil is smart, resourceful and surprisingly good. But what makes “The Vigil” so frustrating is that it feels like a product and not a reflection of its subject’s identity crisis: shy guy Yakov (Dave Davis) starts seeing things after he, needing money, assumes the role of a “shomer,” or a “watchman” who’s paid to sit overnight with a dead body if the deceased has no available friends or loved ones, as an opening title explains. Movie Review: The Vigil IF you’re after a creepy, tense little horror to leave you with a real desire to keep the lights on then look no further than The Vigil. Rob, the film-school dropout, has seen an absurd amount of movies, and if we’re being honest, rounds out our Fight Club fan-base. ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ Ending Explained: What Happens in Chloë Grace Moretz’s Sci-Fi Movie? Too many film sites cater to the same kind of audience, with one overwhelming voice in the writing, but what we treasure at Alternate Ending is diversity: diversity of opinion, diversity in belief about what film should do and how it should do it. Well, we’re not 5 dudes in a room talking about our passion for Fight Club and Braveheart. It's a place that believes that every great movie is a wonderful new treasure, whether you see it the night of its premiere or fifty years later. He sees them anyway, through the perilously under-lit gloom of the Boro Park house that once belonged to Rubin Litvak (Ronald Cohen), now dead. Traditional haunted house movie with a (somewhat) fresh coat of paint. The Vigil is this: something unsettling enough to make us nervous later in the night when turning a dark corner. Upon release in the UK and Ireland, The Vigil grossed £30,302 ($39,500 USD) from 97 sites over its opening weekend. Rated PG-13 “The Vigil” is a modern Jewish-American horror movie, if only in the sense that it hints at personal problems—of familial and tribal guilt and responsibility—without ever transcending genre tropes that were established in “The Exorcist.” I want to dismiss this sort of horror pastiche because “The Vigil” often feels like more of what recently came before it in “The Unborn” from 2009 and “The Apparition” in 2012. The Vigil is a good start for Keith Thomas even though it lacks confidence. Yakov is often quite literally in the dark, and his path is only sometimes illuminated by the words of older Jewish men like his therapist Dr. Marvin Kohlberg (Fred Melamed), who appears as a disembodied voice over the phone, and Rubin Litvak, who emerges as a silvery-grey blur on an old CRTV, rambling about demons and such. The Vigil is a beautiful film about grief that is as powerful as it is frightening. “The Vigil” is a supernatural horror film that gains a bit of sophistication from its premise, even if the script (by Director Keith Thomas) is as basic as the film is small scale.The movie is set in the confines of one house over the course of one evening, and without a good story, direction, and performances, it could’ve quickly collapsed. I was a fan of the commitment to the single location but not as much of the actual scares, the way exposition was delivered, or the lead. ... Writer-director Keith Thomas’ feature debut is a horror movie set in the Orthodox Jewish community of Brooklyn. Oh, and Mrs. Litvak, who warns Yakov that he should get out of her house, but then changes her mind, and says that it’s too late to get out because whatever’s inside will now follow him outside. . Listen to trailer music, OST, original score, and the full list of popular songs in the film. Alternate Ending was formed when three friends realized they all shared a passion for movies. Cast : Dave Davis, Lynn Cohen, Menashe Lustig Release : October 13, 2019 Director : Keith Thomas Genre : Horror, Thriller, Mystery Country : USA Overall Rating : It was very "meh" and left the film as a very forgettable experience unfortunately. Weighty themes that pull from tragedies of incidental deaths and concentration camp atrocities give gravitas to a slim story, though that slimness can make the movie’s scant scares seem trivial if taken purely as a thriller. Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. J ewishness – especially its historical traumas – has flowed freely into the DNA of horror, from the German expressionists to Roman Polanski and William Friedkin, even Darren Aronofsky. 22. Does it shatter walls of originality? It's a site about discovering good movies... one bad movie at a time. Sadly the ending of 'The Vigil' let the film down in my opinion. Yakov presumably wants to get away from his past, but repression is, unto itself, only so interesting. Rubin has a wife, by the way, and she’s even played by the great Lynn Cohen, but this is Yakov’s show. But what makes “The Vigil” so frustrating is that it feels like a product and not a reflection of its subject’s identity crisis: shy guy Yakov starts seeing things after he, needing money, assumes the role of a “shomer,” or a “watchman” who’s paid to sit overnight with a dead body if the deceased has no available friends or loved ones, as an opening title explains. for terror, some disturbing/violent images, thematic elements and brief strong language. And yet: the most personal thing about “The Vigil” and its consideration of Yakov’s feelings is how murky everything is. IFC Midnight releases the film on Friday, February 26, 2021. The Vigil ends with both heartbreak and hopefulness. 22. I didn’t see anything in the dead air of “The Vigil,” but maybe you’ll find something if you squint? 'The Vigil': Film Review | TIFF 2019. Our goal is to save you time and money by sharing our thoughts and recommendations on which movies to race to theaters for, which to watch at home and those to actively avoid. But without offering any spoilers, its culminating scenes fail to be truly terrifying and therein lies the crux of The Vigil: it builds relentless anxiety to reach a … In the Hasidic community of Boro Park, Brooklyn, a despondent young man, short on both faith and funds, reluctantly agrees to assume the responsibility of an overnight shimmer and fulfill the Jewish practice of watching over the body of a deceased member of the Orthodox community. Join us for our weekly review of movies worth seeing, worth avoiding and our Top 5 lists – and don’t forget to play along at, Tim Brayton’s dream of Robert and Carrie exploiting their kids has come true :). A particularly unsettling moment toward the end of the movie involves Yakov simply walking down a hallway, as the walls bulge with ghouls and the passage seems to go on forever. You know exactly what you’re in for the moment this film starts. Now playing in select theaters and available on digital platforms. There were some tired horror tropes; head tilting, creaking monster; loud shrieking noises to elicit jumps but not fear; traumatising back story that the protagonist will overcome through facing physical and metaphorical demons. Still, if you can look past some of the glaring flaws here, The Vigil remains a fairly effective, low-budget horror film. Yakov’s so broke that he can’t even afford his antipsychotic medication, so the ghosts that visit him in “The Vigil” may or may not be all in his head. So, I guess she counts, too. No. What makes Alternate Ending different from other film sites and podcasts? I know that's vague but by the end, it felt like there was very little meat to the film despite crafting a pretty creepy atmosphere with some decent scares. The Vigil’s storyline also unfolds at a painfully slow pace, yet its final moments seem almost rushed, with a confusing onslaught of revelations. Historically, the process of Shemira was three-part. Horror fans will almost certainly get what they desire from “The Vigil”: demonic malfeasance, nerve-jangling sound design, patient pans down dimly-lit hallways, and the obligatory creepy old lady without whom no contemporary horror movie is complete (this time, said creepy old lady exists in the form of a dead-eyed bubbeleh played to terrifying perfection by Lynn Cohen). There is no neatly-tied bow, giving viewers the … “The Vigil” is ostensibly about his struggle to maintain a personal connection with a religion that he broke ties with, under conditions that are only negligibly explained. The simple story follows Dave Davis’ Yakov who left an Orthodox Jewish community but agrees to provide an overnight watch to a deceased Jew – paying a terrifying price in the process. Now, with The Vigil, there’s a fresh take on the religious/demon possession horror film. It is refreshing to see a horror film based within Jewish culture and mysticism, but this one won’t suit the tastes of all genre fans. ... that ends with a frightening twist. Low on funds and having recently left his insular religious community, Yakov reluctantly accepts an offer from his former rabbi and confidante to take on the. Davis’s performance also adds so much to the film… ... Truthfully, like many films of this type, the ending is a little convenient and abrupt, but it works as a nice climax to the browbeaten Yakov’s story. Mr. Litvak is revealed to have lived out the rest of his days eaten up by the shame of killing another prisoner, while Yakov's trauma over his brother's death finds him frozen in place in his own life. ‘The Vigil’ Review The death of a Hasidic man drives the demon who'd haunted him to find a new host in this modest but creepy 'Jewish horror movie.' Carrie, our casual movie-goer, reminds us all that cinema is in fact supposed to be fun and entertaining and that sometimes, just sometimes, happy endings are good. Follow him on Twitter, if you feel like it. While 80% of the scenes were shot in an about-to-be renovated house in Brooklyn where the owner had recently died, several sequences were shot outside. No. The Mazzik in The Vigil symbolizes how grief and shame can attach themselves to a person and how this can impact their entire lives. 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