The Possession -2012-2012 Apr 2026

The film subverts gender expectations of possession. Emily’s possession is not sexualized (as in Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist ) but behavioral: she becomes aggressive, secretive, and hostile—stereotypical “adolescent” behaviors that the parents interpret as acting out due to the divorce. This misdiagnosis is the film’s tragedy. The school counselor and the stepmother assume psychological trauma; only the Hasidic exorcist, Tzadok (Tom Atkins in a career-defining role), recognizes the supernatural. Tzadok explains that the dybbuk “is not a demon; it’s a ghost with a grudge.” This line explicitly aligns the entity with emotional baggage: the dybbuk is a grudge that has forgotten its original cause but remembers its right to be angry.

Cinematographically, Bornedal emphasizes closed spaces: the box’s interior, the glass case at the antique store, the pantry where Emily first convulses, and finally the sealed motel room where the exorcism occurs. This visual motif of containment mirrors the family’s refusal to openly discuss the divorce. The dybbuk is “trapped” until Emily opens it—just as the family’s anger is trapped until it erupts through her. The entity’s signature act (forcing Emily to eat raw meat, moths, and a glass shard) represents the internalization of poison; she literally consumes the family’s unresolved bitterness.

Nevertheless, this dynamic serves the divorce allegory. The gerush exorcism requires the entire family to be present and to confess their sins against one another. In a key scene, Tzadok forces Clyde to admit that he was unfaithful (the implied cause of the divorce) while the dybbuk speaks through Emily. The exorcism succeeds not through holy water or crucifixes but through the restoration of familial unity and truth-telling. The dybbuk is expelled only when the parents stop fighting and hold Emily together—a literal act of shared custody. The horror concludes when the family, broken but reunited, watches the box burn. The message is clear: the demon of divorce cannot be fought individually; it requires communal ritual and accountability. The Possession -2012-2012

The film’s greatest weakness is its resolution. After the exorcism, the family simply reunites; there is no exploration of the underlying marital issues. The dybbuk is destroyed, but the conditions that attracted it (dishonesty, anger, fractured communication) remain unaddressed. This optimistic ending conflicts with the film’s otherwise grim realism, suggesting that the supernatural threat was always a more comfortable enemy than marital therapy.

Traditional Jewish folklore describes the dybbuk as a lost, tormented soul that attaches to a living person to achieve a goal (e.g., vengeance or completion). In The Possession , the dybbuk has no coherent backstory—its goal is simply to destroy the host’s family. Significantly, the entity first manifests violently when Clyde attempts to enforce a custody schedule (taking Emily for the weekend). The spirit’s attacks peak whenever the parents argue or when Emily is forced to choose between them. The film subverts gender expectations of possession

The central artifact—the dybbuk box (based on the real “Dibbuk Box” sold on eBay in 2003)—serves as a powerful material metaphor. In the film, Clyde and Stephanie have divided their household: Clyde keeps a new apartment; Stephanie retains the family home. The box is discovered at a yard sale, a liminal space of discarded possessions and broken transactions. Emily, the middle child caught in the custody crossfire, is drawn to the box because it promises secrecy and containment—qualities her life lacks.

Released in August 2012, The Possession arrived during a renaissance of critically engaged horror (e.g., The Conjuring , Sinister , Insidious ). However, unlike films that utilized Catholic demonology or vague pagan entities, The Possession centered on the Jewish dybbuk —a soul that cannot find rest and thus inhabits the living. Directed by Dane Ole Bornedal ( Nightwatch ) and produced by Sam Raimi, the film follows Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a recently divorced father, whose young daughter Emily (Natasha Calis) buys a carved wooden box at a yard sale. Unbeknownst to the family, the box contains a dybbuk , which proceeds to possess Emily, leading to a desperate exorcism ( gerush ) performed by a Hasidic Jewish community. The school counselor and the stepmother assume psychological

Upon release, The Possession received mixed to positive reviews (49% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 57 Metacritic score). Critics praised Natascha Calis’s physical performance but faulted the film’s reliance on jump scares and a slow middle act. However, retrospective analyses (e.g., Bloody Disgusting’s 2022 re-evaluation) have noted the film’s prescient treatment of divorce-related childhood anxiety. In an era of elevated horror, The Possession is often dismissed as a minor work, yet its direct engagement with custody trauma—specifically the child as a “vessel” for parental anger—anticipates Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) by six years.

This paper posits that the dybbuk is not merely a monster but a narrative device that externalizes the family’s internal dysfunction. The film’s central innovation is to replace the traditional demonic goal (destruction of innocence) with a psychological one: the dybbuk feeds on the chaos of a broken home, specifically exploiting the space between mother (Stephanie, played by Kyra Sedgwick) and father.