A LITTLE BIT AUDITION, A LITTLE BIT I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, A LITTLE BIT FLESH & BLOOD, A WHOLE LOT OF MISOGYNY




Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009)/American Mary (2012) Canadian

This flinch fest has a little bit of everything - torture, rape, murder, misogyny and a small hint of humor. In a sick kind of way. I saw American Mary first and I was kind of glad - watching the Soska sisters' first effort of an independent film makes one realize that with practice this team might make some pretty good stuff. Just not yet. Seeing them both you can really tell they had quite a bit more money to spend on the second one.

Now there are those who would argue vehemently with me - DHIAT was recommended to me as an excellent movie, and I had heard AM was like the movie Audition (1999) an excellent foreign film I reviewed 8/24/12, that I'm going to have to get a copy of - it's a flinch/gore fest and the story is good. But back to the Soska sisters.

That they have talent is without question. Like I said, I think if they keep making movies, they'll get better and better. These two had great promise and certainly original stories but, well, let's start with the first one.

When you write/direct/produce a movie and then decide to star in it, you're gonna have trouble. For one thing, the more 'hats' you wear, the harder it is to keep control of them all. As actresses, they were uneven and at times cartoonish, but did show promise. The story is - umm - bizarre is about the only word I can think of for it and I was hoping this wasn't going to be a cheap version of Weekend At Bernies. It wasn't.


Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009): The characters have no names, just description of their personalities. There are four. First is Badass (Sylvia Soska) a tough twin to Geek (Jen Soska) and we get a small bit of backstory that as a small child she was forced to shoot her father after he killed their mother. Geek wears glasses because, of course, in movie lingo this means she is not as pretty as her sister but smarter, right? Even though they're identical twins. In this film, except for looking alike, they have little in common. 

They are joined by Junkie (Badass' friend) and Goody Two-Shoes (Geek's friend) - the only male in the group and shown to be the weakest one of the bunch. The fun begins when they smell something strange in their Firebird (a restored 1969 Pontiac Firebird with mag wheels - too good for them but I'd take it) and discover, well, see the title.

Thus a chain of events is set in motion and the movie gets very choppy - there's almost no flow, just 'scenes' that happen one after another. The Soska sisters set out to show women can use gore just as good as the big boys can, and there's plenty of it. In the course of trying to get rid of the body, Geek loses her eye by being hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat (interesting) but instead of going to hospital just puts an 'X' of electrical tape over the hole (better than duct tape I guess). Then Junkie gets a severe cut via chainsaw to her arm by a drug dealer while she was making a pickup so Badass, having a gun from a previous scuffle, proceeds to blow everyone's head off and rescue her.

Now we get into cartoonish territory. We have Geek wearing her glasses over a tape covered eye socket, and as they're all out arguing on the side of a road Junkie waves her arms in frustration and a truck comes by and whoops! No more arm. 

Not to worry though, Badass simply retrieves the arm out of the 18 wheeler's grill (WTH?) and sews it back on. Ooookay. So the hooker's still in the trunk and the four decide to bury her together. As Badass digs a hole the hooker... wait for it... sits up. Badass promptly bashes her over the head with the shovel without a second thought. Yikes. But they don't bury her yet and back in the trunk she goes.

This goes on for the rest of the movie, with bad things happening to the group and a definite all-men-are-evil-and-will-hurt-you theme running throughout (Goody Two-Shoes doesn't count - one they think he's gay (he's not) and two he's a born again Christian youth group leader. With a foul mouth. Sigh.). The two injured girls don't act like they are in any kind of pain and still don't even go to a doctor and the rest of the movie's storyline is finally revealed - the hooker was killed by a serial killer and placed in their trunk for... a while I guess.

It wasn't really much of a shock to discover that it was Goody Two-Shoe's pious priest who was the serial killer since there really wasn't many men in this movie (sorry for assuming the serial killer was a man but roughly 85% of all serial killers are male). His motivation? A botched circumcision left him a bit... different and women made fun of him his whole life. Huh. That's... kind of dumb. You've gotta admit that of all the reasons someone would want to kill...

In the end in a twisted sense of justice, he is set on fire and burned, and the hooker dumped in the ocean, with our four now-friends driving off into the sunset. Ick.


American Mary (2012): While this also had quite the unique story (and also smaller parts played by the Soska sisters) it was uneven and seemed to run out of gas long before the ending, which was pretty dumb. But my problem is the title of the film itself. The character is a student studying to become a surgeon, named Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle), and as she does... what I'm about to describe, she tells all that she doesn't want her name spread around in case the police come back to her so they call her 'Bloody Mary'. So where did American Mary come from? There's no reference to it in the movie and no explanation either.

So Mary is studying medicine in Seattle, Washington (really Vancouver B.C.) with a sadistic teacher named Dr. Grant who's a real A to the double S to the HOLE. He picks on Mary constantly, both in class and in the hospital when they make rounds. But Mary badly wants to be a surgeon, even practicing on turkeys outside of class, to become the best there is. One BIG problem. Mary is from a Hungarian family in Budapest and they don't have money. And she is broke. Very, VERY broke. Desperate she goes to a strip club for a job. The owner, Billy, says all the right things (insert sarcasm here) like 'You're not fat under there or anything are you?' Like I said, all men are evil and will hurt you.

Before she can, uh, shake her booty Billy's bouncer comes in and he asks her to come with him to help stitch up an associate of his who had been tortured - for cash. Now. For five grand she does the distasteful job and manages to get back home before she loses everything she hasn't eaten for the last few days.

The movie gets weird from here. I mean that in an interesting way. If you have no experience with the concept of body modification, you won't understand what the big deal is here. I'm not talking about the cute little green dot earring in your nose (which always looks like snot to me) or the standard rose/skull/eagle tattoo on your arm/thigh. I'm talking hardcore. If you look up body modification, you'll find it's not for circus freaks - there is a population of people so desperately unhappy with themselves that they will do just about anything to alter their appearance. Or just think it's cool. Whatever.

This is not part of the movie - it's real...

Not just plastic surgery, but things such as 3D modification, voluntary amputation, and something not mentioned in the movie but last I heard only two people in the WORLD are willing to do it - tattoo the whites of your eyes. EYES. Blue eyeballs. Or whatever color they choose. These people also are willing to take the necessary risks to attain these modifications - unless the person is very good (and sterile) you can go blind or die from the complications.

So Mary meets Beatress - a stripper from Billy's club. Right away there's something... alien about her. She loves Betty Boop. A LOT. So to make the outside look like she felt on the inside... lets say the effects are startling. She has a friend who basically wants to look like a doll - and that means female, but, uh, not anatomically correct shall we say? Her name is Ruby Realgirl and she designs dolls and wants to be one herself - her face already is so frozen that when she speaks her lips barely even move. What does she have done? Umm - look at a Barbie doll and you'll pretty much figure it out. And she pays a LOT of money.

Mary is then invited to a party with other surgeons. This was a massive duh. Why they hell would surgeons invite students to a party unless... yup, roofies all around. In no time, the horrid Dr. Grant has her in a bedroom and she is violated, choked, raped and videotaped. For whatever reason, he doesn't have her dumped somewhere - she wakes up in the bed next to him. That... was not realistic. Dazed and messed up she asks Billy for a favor and soon Dr. Grant is trussed up and in her apartment. She decides to 'use' him to practice some other body modifications so that she can continue her new profession and collect some very high fees. Oh and she does it without anesthetic, just to be fair. I thought it was fair anyway.

So Mary starts to become famous for her skillful technique and willingness to do anything a customer asks. Anything. Cut it off? 'Kay. Sew it up? 'Kay. We then get to see the Soska twins again playing German body modification fans who want to always be together - even when apart. That involves switching arms and for whatever reason, 3D implants of horns in both foreheads. She gets another surgeon to help her since both arms need to come off and be sewed back on immediately. And of course since this is fantasy just as unreal as the first movie we won't worry about the little things, like connecting the nerve endings, muscles, fusing bones, you know, the micro surgery needed for this kind of thing...

And Dr. Grant? He's fine - what's left of him. Hanging by his flesh from hooks, all limbs amputated, lips sewn shut and being fed through an IV, Mary keeps him alive - whether for revenge or more practice we don't know 'cause somehow a security guard discovers her and tries to free the guy - the guard ends up getting his head turned to paste. Mary was mad and Mary made a mess.

Even though a detective has been harassing her with questions, she continues her work. Billy is worried though - Beatress has disappeared. Turns out that Ruby has a husband who doesn't quite appreciate his new anatomically incorrect wife. He beats the bejeezus out of Beatress until she tells him where Mary is. Mary doesn't discover this until she's already home - where he's waiting for her. How he got into her locked apartment we don't know - all we know is the movie has a few minutes left so...

The husband stabs Mary who returns the favor and kills him. She manages to sew her wound shut but the next scene is of the police crawling all over her apartment. They've discovered her album of 'work', including the hapless Dr. Grant. And Mary? She stitched herself up, but the internal bleeding was too much and she lies dead on the floor. What a flat, nothing, what the hell ending.

So what have we learned kiddies? Creativity is great. Practice is good. But maybe for the twin's next project they should step back and concentrate on the story and the direction instead of giving themselves excuses to parade in front of the cameras. Oh and remember - men are bad. Just ask them.

WHO LOVES YA BABY? THE HORRORS OF FEELING REJECTED

Craving Internet Popularity

If you've spent any amount of time on the internet, chances are you are connected to some sort of social networking site. We won't mention any names, but one in particular seems to have drawn more than its share of negative publicity for making people 'unhappy'.

Let's own up to our feelings people - you're not unhappy unless you choose to be. I'm not talking about depression, or illness, or fibromyalgia, I'm talking about that feeling you get when a person won't be your 'friend' or a 'friend' dumps you or won't talk to you or 'like' your stuff. Heck, it could even be that feeling when you put something up for sale or auction and no one will buy it. You feel... rejection.

Which is absolutely ridiculous - those 'friends' that won't talk to you - do you really want them to? Ever? A little? Every day? Even if you're related to them? If someone you try to 'friend' is also someone you know by name but have never really had a complete conversation with, is rejection really a reason for unhappiness? And if your product isn't something that's wanted by the market right now, is that your fault?

I'm not speaking from a sense of superiority, I get the same illogical feelings myself. When a person I knew in high school (and that means simply that I know they were there at the same time) decided to 'unfriend' me, I actually felt bad. When I post things that get 'shared' but not 'liked' I have that feeling of 'hey that's not fair - if you are going to use it, you have to like it'.... why? My link to this site is almost never 'liked' yet I have a reader base that surpasses my wildest expectations (and I thank you all profusely for that) and yet I feel bad each time another link passes without at least one 'like'. That. Makes. No. Sense.

But being the social creatures we are, this was bound to happen. No matter where you live or what social media you frequent, we all want feedback for one reason or another - either to validate our opinions and contributions or to simply stroke our egos. But do that and you're setting yourself up for a fall.

The 'studies' released have been incredibly skewed - as well as not very reliable as invariably they use a small amount of 'examples' using only certain types of internet services. That's a major DUH to then conclude that using the internet (and certain social sites) will make you unhappy the more you are online. A large study, considering all factors (and not using just college students as subjects) would have to be done over the course of a considerable period of time to come to any kind of substantial conclusion.

Certain studies conclude that if you do 'A' activities, you will be happier, while 'B' activities will do the opposite. Pffft, the opposite is true for me, so what does that say about their 'facts'? One article states that it's like going to a bar to study the effect of booze and talking exclusively with alcoholics. Well said.

So if surfing the web for hours is making you feel depressed (or just lonely) here's a really DUH suggestion: TURN IT OFF. Go for a walk (if you're physically able), read a book, catch up on your television shows (if you're like me, being here gets you really behind in your favorite shows), take a nap. And for heaven's sake, if your particular social site is not getting the 'attention' you think it deserves - skip a day or two and see how you feel. We had a power outage one winter that lasted a week - no internet, just books, candles and a warm bed. You know what? It felt pretty good. I once dumped a whole lot of stuff off my social sites and couldn't believe how much time it freed up (I need to do that again).

So people, if you're feeling neglected or unwanted, don't look for validation on the world's latest connection that's more impersonal than a snail mail letter. Turn it off and look to your family (or pets, they're wonderful too) for validation, love and acceptance. Oh, but don't forget to read my reviews first. Thank you very much.

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MOVIES YOU CAN PASS OVER BUT I'M GIVING THEM A PASSING MENTION




Whoa, What Stinkers!

Usually I don't complain (unless I think it's funny) about the movies I watch, good, bad or really, really BAD. It seems I've gotten hold of some real bummers lately but hey, see motto above, right? So with a grin and a grimace, here's some of the barely mentionable cinema I've viewed recently.

Last Kind Words (2012):  This was actually the better of the films I'm highlighting here (even if it appears to steal its movie poster idea from Silent Hill: Revelations) - it's just that for a 'horror' movie it's really a dreary, depressing look at a disintegrating family and you know the movie will NOT have a good ending, or even a satisfying one. Eli, 17, has moved with his mother and father on his father's childhood's friend's farm. While the owner appears rich, with lots of property and buildings, he is actually a step away from losing the place. 

He also has a secret. When Eli discovers that part of the farm is fenced off and wants to explore, their landlord (Brad Dourif) very curtly tells him to stay away from that area. That is of course an instant invitation to explore - and he finds out in the middle of nowhere a sweet girl named Amanda who becomes his only friend. When the landlord discovers that Eli has seen Amanda he goes ballistic. And that's where the movie loses any sense of... sense. 

Apparently, whomever is hung from a tree on this piece of property stays there as a spirit. Why? Pfft - no explanations are given of ANYTHING. An old black gentleman accused of... something long, long ago is hung from one of the trees and his 'spirit' finally freed when Eli lowers his body from the tree. And then to his 'horror' he finds why Eli wants him away from that part of the property - some obscure story about the guy killing his father by accident, blaming his sister and hanging her out there - so of course, the sister being Amanda is now stuck out there. 

Her brother loves her... umm... a bit too much and wants to be with her forever so he ends up hanging himself with her skeleton from the same tree. She doesn't want to be eternally stuck to him so begs Eli to cut them both down. He does, knowing it means he loses her.

Our last scene of this doom and gloom fest is of Eli's mother, quite a bit older and alone and now owner of the property greeting a family that will live there to help her with it. There's a teenage daughter with them - she looks over the fenced area and sees Eli, same age, waiting to talk to her. He had, of course, hanged himself to... what? Amanda was gone, he wasn't going to meet up with her so why did he kill himself? We don't know, all we're grateful for is that this boring angst fest is over.



Super Hybrid (2010) Australian: A copy of Stephen King's classic Christine this is not - which is the only thing you can give it credit for. Otherwise it is a lame creature feature with head shaking stupidity and a waste of acting talents (Oded Fehr being on top of that list).  Late one night, a mysterious car is brought into the Chicago police impound garage after a deadly traffic accident. 


The on-call mechanics soon discover the car has a mind of its own. With hundreds of horsepower and two tons of reinforced steel at its command, it's a seemingly unstoppable killing machine capable of outrunning -- and outwitting -- humans. Why? Well because it's a shapeshifting tentacled monster from God-knows-where that's why. Silly movie watcher - did you expect a rational explanation? So basically the whole movie is a group of people conveniently trapped in a police impound garage running from a car that can become any car it chooses and picks them off one by one - but much MUCH too slowly. Sigh.


The Open Door (2008) Australian: Being a teenager is sooooo hard. And unfair. What, was this supposed to be surprising in some way? The movie starts with some vague statistics about strange murders and other crimes happening on full moons. Duh. So our protagonist and generally stupid teenager Angelica sits at home, angry at being grounded from going to a party. She tunes into a legendary pirate radio broadcast, hosted by a strange figure known as the Oracle, that only appears on the nights of the full moon. This Oracle was supposed to be an urban legend, but of course for the movie it's real. All we see is a van with a large antenna broadcasting from the top of a hill.

So Angelica lets all her angst and venom out to the Oracle, a woman who follows when the man invites the needy to call in and talk to her. She basically wishes all her enemies will eat dirty worms and die and... well, that's pretty much the movie. Be careful what you wish for, blah blah blah. Some unseen entity inhabits the partygoers one by one (oh yeah, she sneaks out and goes to the party anyway) and people die until she is the only one left - and off to jail for killing all her friends. 

The radio (you know this is foreign - they still listen to the radio) is upside down on the floor. Upside down the station appears as 666. Then a paramedic, even though this is a CRIME SCENE picks up the radio and puts it on the counter. Nice.

Her parents, who were out for the night are shown in an open hotel room - well, a bloody hand is shown - we assume they're dead too. We also see that the Oracle and the announcer are the same person (one hand is male, the other obviously female, that's all we see of, umm, it) and as the sun rises, the antenna goes back into the van and it drives off, waiting for the next full moon. Massive duh.


Unrest (2006): Now I KNOW I've seen a foreign film just like this one about a group of medical students who suffer mysterious deaths after they start working on a cadaver who's spirit is apparently 'not at rest'. I can't find it now for the life of me (sorry for that). I also know it was a hell of a lot better than this sorry mess. This one is supposedly of a woman who was some sort of archaeologist in Brazil who disturbed thousands of Aztecs souls in a dig (They're probably pissed off because Aztecs belong in Mexico.) who went psycho, became a prostitute, a killer and finally commits suicide.

So these hapless students cut her up, noticing that she moves every once in a while, seems warm to the touch, and oh yeah, they start to die. And proper medical protocol (as well as continuity) goes right out the window. I'm actually surprised they actually bothered with gloves. We're talking about people spraying others in the face with body fluids (don't ask) and no one is wearing masks, people touching the body then touching other people, etc. Yuck. 

The corpse couldn't decide whether to keep its eyes closed or open - it's different in a lot of scenes. In the end, when of course one girl who lives in the hospital because she can't afford a dorm (which I swear was in the other movie too) cuts up the body to drag it to the incinerator, we get a reappearing/disappearing blood trail as the camera keeps cutting away... oh brother.


The only interesting thing was the info on the movie: The film was shot in a real morgue, where the cast experienced some haunting dreams. The trailer claims that real bodies were used. However, this is not the first film to use real bodies. In the 1982 film Poltergeist, in the scene where the mother falls into the pool and the skeletons attack her, the skeletons used were real, and were buried in the spot of the set. Likewise, in the 1987 Hong Kong film Men Behind the Sun, a genuine child's body was used for an autopsy scene.

And they left out that in the movie Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola wanted an 'authentic' war feel although it was made in The Phillipines and so there are real bodies strewn throughout that movie also.

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NO TEARS, PLEASE. IT'S A WASTE OF GOOD SUFFERING. WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU!

Glorious Things To Come (I Hope) And Thank You Clive Barker For The Great Lines

The trouble with people suffering from fibromyalgia is that they're either incapacitated and suffering, or they're moving very slowly and suffering. I myself am always in flux between the two. My friend Tim says I should type everything in and then release one a day - I've seen other sites do that (in fact I've seen some called something like 'A Horror Film A Day') but unfortunately, fibro doesn't work like that. If I don't get it down and published when I can, it just sits there for days until I have the strength (and the painkillers) to allow me to publish some more.

So dear readers I am far from neglecting you - in fact I think of and appreciate you reading my humble opinions of halfway decent down to outright garbage movie companies pass for horror. But I have some good things coming up that promise for a halfway decent fall.

No, I still am not that interested in 'new' horror films (which, be honest, are just the regurgitated ideas of great writers being stolen, rebooted and splatted on the big screen at the cost of your hard-earned dollars) but still like the less-than-Academy Award worthy movies that smaller, independent filmmakers come out with. And the classics. Let's please not forget the classics.

Having discovered a plethora of goodies on Amazon (bundled conveniently in packages so I don't have to have thousands of small DVD boxes) I plan to have a great time discovering horror from the 40's clear through the 90's and some of them will probably be pretty good. At least I'm hoping.

I also thought I'd do a (small) Jackie Chan movie marathon - not much in the way of horror, but he did appear in a couple of off the wall movies (I am NOT talking about the Rush Hour movies, which even Jackie hates) where both his skill and comedy worked well within a kind-of-horror type movie.

What I didn't know about Mr. Chan is that since the 60's he has appeared in over 150 films - many of them uncredited. How hard do you want to work to appear in that many movies and receive no credit? It is an example of the kind of man he is - not perfect by a long shot but certainly talented and inexhaustible. As a child he was nicknamed 'Cannonball' because he could never be kept still. 

Did you know he was in two Bruce Lee movies? Did you know he patterned his fighting style to be the OPPOSITE of Bruce Lee? Wherever Bruce made a stance with arms apart and loose, Jackie would tighten his up and keep them close to his body... in other words, he didn't try to copy his hero, just the opposite. He developed a Jackie Chan style of fighting.

His style of comedy, mixed with the insistence of doing all his own stunts makes almost everything he's in enjoyable. I was thinking of one movie (which I will watch again and make part of the marathon) which wasn't about him at all - it's a vampire movie and he has maybe 5 to 10 minutes of screen time. But when I tried to remember the film, all I could remember was his brief part and had to look through his filmography to find it (The Vampire Effect, in case you wanna see it).

So with that being said and my fingers swiftly becoming useless because, well, that's what fibro is, I'll sign off for now with another thank you for reading my blog, promises of some pretty interesting movie reviews in a bit and if any of you are fellow sufferers of fibro, sit back, relax and don't try so hard to be the 'normal' person most expect us to be... you are you and no matter how much or how little you can move, you are still precious.

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OY VEY! A JEWISH HORROR MOVIE! BASED ON A TRUE STORY! OY GEVALT!

The Possession (2012)

Sam Raimi. That's what I saw going down the list of movies to watch. The title was... beyond unimaginative but... Sam Raimi. What could possibly go wrong (as my friend Tim Forston is fond of saying)? So I start this movie I had never heard of even though there are at least four movies just on Netflix with a variation of the 'Possession' title but hey - Sam Raimi. If you don't recognize that name, he (and Bruce Campbell) crafted my favorite trilogy - The Evil Dead. I start it up and see: The following is based on a true story. 

Uh oh. C'mon Sam, say it ain't so - you're gonna give us a lame 'I swear this really happened!' kind of movie? Next: This is what happened to one family over the course of 29 days. Oh crap. That means I have to immediately call BS on good ole' Sammy 'cause just because there were two lines of description given to us, does NOT mean that they are related to each other. And they're not.

AND this movie is not an original idea. In 1937 a Yiddish horror movie called 'The Dybbuk', or 'Between Two Worlds' was based on a 1914 play by S. Ansky, relating the story of a young bride possessed by a dybbuk – a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person – on the eve of her wedding. The Dybbuk is considered a seminal play in the history of Jewish theater, and played an important role in the development of Yiddish theater and theater in Israel.

This movie held interest for me 'cause of Sam, the fact it was a Jewish horror movie (don't see many of those), it has a historical bent to it, and part of the story generates from Portland, Oregon (about an hour from where I live). Sigh. So I stopped the movie and went to see the true and the make-believe.

There is, in real REAL life the supposed existences of what are called a Dibbuks or Dybbuks (a Yiddish term simply meaning dislocated spirit, usually malicious) depending on where you look. And this particular so-called trapped dibbuk is in what is called a wine box, (or scroll box, depending). In other words, I don't think anybody knows for 100% positive what the hell it REALLY is. Supposedly the original possession of Jewish holocaust survivors, this particular box was passed along until it was in someone's hands who either saw bad luck or a huge opportunity.

Bought by the owner of an antiques store in Portland, this person heard that it contained a spirit, trapped there when the Jewish owners performed some kind of seance over it. Uh huh. So in other words, once again people have messed around with spiritism and actually have the gall to act surprised when bad things happen. It is especially puzzling that this is was a Jewish seance (using a homemade Oracle board) since at Leviticus 20:27 Jehovah God directly told the Jewish people; “‘And as for a man or woman in whom there proves to be a mediumistic spirit or spirit of prediction, they should be put to death without fail. They should pelt them to death with stones. Their own blood is upon them.’”

So, finding not wine (or a scroll) inside the box but instead two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, of course, allegedly one 'dybbuk', the owner decided to get rid of it on eBay. It started with a bid of $1. The owner ramps up a good story about it being supposedly haunted and the bids go wild. The story gets ramped up even more with the report of SEVERAL owners reporting bad juju when they supposedly owned the box and the crowd goes bananas. eBay reported that the site got over 140,000 hits. At least five authors, one screenwriter and a documentary crew have sought up-close access, so much so that the present owner had to go off the grid just to get some privacy.

So, urban legend or jinxed box? Let's put it this way (and this is not my thinking but psychologists) - when you expect bad things to happen because of something, you usually won't be disappointed. So the box could be 'jinxed' if you really believe it to be. As for the origin of the 'dybbuk' itself - that is a very long and twisty subject that can be interpreted really any way you want it to be.

Umm what? Oh oh oh, the movie... yeah, I was disappointed. Dybbuk box? Yeah, supposedly it existed, first reported by the LA Times in 2004 (the movie gives this article credit at the end). The family? Pure fiction. See? Based on a true story simply means yes, there was a box. The rest is... the same old thing you've seen a thousand times in movies just like this one - the family wasn't particularly likable, the plot totally uninspired, the effects, although some were kind of neat were obviously CGI'd, and the ending was set (I had it written down quick) from the second the movie started.

So a newly divorced family starts having a truckload of trouble when their youngest daughter finds this box in a garage sale (of course). She starts talking to it, hearing it whisper back, and tries to find a way to open it. And, since she has apparently seen Hellraiser, she fondles the box until, like a puzzle, it opens. And it hits the fan. We get a ton of moths, she starts saying in a rough low voice 'Em's not here' just like every other possession movie - I swear if she had said she were Legion I would have stopped the movie right there. 

'Cause that's what killed it for me - cliche' city. I mean nothing they said was remotely original. From the mom and dad fighting, to the 'spirit' talking through the girl, the box killing anyone who touches it (except her family of course), to the Hasidic Jew who, upon being asked to see the girl who by then was in the hospital, saying, 'I don't like hospitals - people die there.' Oh really genius? Name one place on Earth where they don't.

Having one of the girl's eyes roll down in her head and the other up was a cute trick, but the rest was so, blah, that there were really no scares. The spirit is named as the 'Taker Of Children' (oh brother) and the rest is so pedestrian that taking notes was boring. Don't be misled by the poster - no hand comes out of the girl's mouth. It does the father's (that's the typical 'TAKE ME INSTEAD' scene every possession movie has) but the movie poster makes it look scarier happening to the little girl I guess.

The ending? You already know it - that good but bad ending every possession movie has. The girl is released, the father is too, and the Hasidic Jew takes the box to do, uh, whatever he plans to do with it - right up until he's t-boned by an 18 wheeler, which obliterates him, his car, but, of course, not the box - it's without a scratch. The-freaking-end.

Even the makers of this movie must have realized they needed a little extra oomph to push this thing along. If you read about the movie, it is said that no one (not even Sam) wanted to even take a peek at the real box - they made one up - because the idea of the thing scared them badly. Duh. Oh, and (according to them) five days after the filming ended, everything, including the house they filmed in, burned down with no explanation. Uh huh.

Maybe they need to go down to S-Mart and have a talk with a certain rough-chinned hero to solve their problems for them.

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