Talk about facing up to your demons.
Writer/director Keith Thomas’ schlock shock, horror film, THE VIGIL, has post traumatic stress disorder sufferer, Yakov, grudgingly accepting a position as a
shomer, hired to “sit the vigil” and watch over the body of a deceased community member in Brooklyn’s Hassidic “Boro” Park neighborhood.
Having lost his faith, Yakov isn’t eager to go back to the insular religious community he only recently fled. But when Reb Shulem, a rabbi and confidante, approaches Yakov after a support group meeting and offers to pay Yakov to be the shomer for a recently deceased Holocaust survivor, Mr. Litvak, he reluctantly accepts the job.
The deal is that Yakov sits with the shrouded corpse downstairs, the only other living, breathing being in the house is the recently widowed, Mrs. Litvak, supposedly observing isolated mourning upstairs till morning.
Over the period of the evening, creepy events transpire to cause Yakov to perspire, almost expire, and finally go into bat as an exorcist.
Apparently, Yakov is trapped by memories of being harassed for being Hasidic, and the Mazikeen, a traditional evil spirit is itching to damn him for eternity.
Consumed with doom, he finds phylacteries, togs up with tefillin, and with an induced consciousness of God, goes into battle with the Mazik.
THE VIGIL plays best in the early part, with the sense of spooky suspense associated with being in an old house with a shrouded corpse.
Low light, subtle sounds, breeze ruffled curtains, conspire to conjure an eerie atmosphere.
Dave Davis as Yakov does a nice turn in solitary confinement paranoia and the late Lynn Cohen as Mrs Litvak channels Ruth Gordon from Rosemary’s Baby.
Possessed cell phones bring technology into the terror but the suspense is jettisoned with an over the top hologram holocaust sequence that offers a disappointing denouement.
