Produced by cult horror maestro Sam Raimi and directed by Ole Bornedal, The Possession showed potential. Em, a young girl already off-kilter due to the acrimonious divorce of her parents (an affable Jeffrey Dean Morgan and a shrill Kyra Sedgwick), finds a creepy wooden box at a yard sale and becomes obsessed with it. Em should have heeded Pandora's example; soon enough the box is forced open, and a shit storm of trouble in the form of a dybbuk (an ancient Jewish demon) is unleashed. At first a pleasing dread mounts as it becomes clear that Em's prepubescent angst is morphing into something more insidious, but Raimi's signature schlock is misused here. The few genuine scares devolve into unintentional laughs or amused perplexity, as when Hasidic reggae artist Matisyahu, playing a rabbi commissioned to perform an exorcism, practically beatboxes the prayers onto the afflicted girl.
