The Possession | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Ole Bornedal |
Produced by |
Sam Raimi Robert Tapert J. R. Young |
Written by |
Juliet Snowden Stiles White |
Starring |
Jeffrey Dean Morgan Kyra Sedgwick Natasha Calis Grant Show Madison Davenport Matisyahu |
Music by | Anton Sanko |
Edited by | Raph Adiao |
Production
company |
Ghost House Pictures
North Box Productions |
Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release date
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Running time
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92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English,Polish |
Budget | $14 million |
Box office | $78.5 million |
The Possession is a 2012 American supernatural body horror film directed by Ole Bornedal and produced by Sam Raimi. It was released in the US on August 31, 2012, with the film premiering at the Film4 FrightFest.
The story is based on the allegedly haunted dybbuk box. Bornedal cited films like The Exorcist as an inspiration, praising their subtlety.
A newly separated couple Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Stephanie Brenek (Kyra Sedgwick) live in different homes. After Clyde picks up their two children, Emily "Em" (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport), for the weekend, they stop at a yard sale where Em becomes intrigued by an old wooden box that has Hebrew letters engraved on it. Clyde buys the box for Em, and they later find that there seems no way to open it. That night, Em hears whispering coming from the box. She is able to open it, and finds a tooth, a dead moth, a wooden figurine, and a ring, which she begins to wear. Em becomes solitary, and her behavior becomes increasingly sinister; she stabs her father in the hand with a fork. The house becomes infested with moths.
At school, Em violently attacks a classmate when he takes her box, resulting in a meeting with Clyde, Stephanie, the principal, and teacher. Em's teacher recommends that she spend time away from the box, so it is left in the classroom. That night, curious about the noises from the box, the teacher tries to open it, but a malevolent force, the dybbuk, throws her out a window and she dies. Em tells Clyde about an invisible woman who lives in her box who says that Em is "special". Alarmed by her behavior, Clyde attempts to dispose of the box. During their next weekend at Clyde's, Emily gets progressively more upset with the disappearance of the box. She begins yelling at Clyde in the hall with Hannah watching in the back. The dybbuk seems to slap Em across the face. She begins yelling, asking why he's hitting her, from Hannah's perspective it looks like he actually does. Em flees the house, recovers the box and begins conversing with the dybbuk.