L'Emprise du démon

The Offering (2022) takes a new shape in this terror/suspense movie with a lot of intrigue, terror, thriller, twists and turns. It begins with some intriguing words: ¨In the myths of the Middle East and Europe there is a terrifying female demon, represented in amulets, paintings and stories since the first century after Christ. It has thousands of names in various languages and religions, but it has a single terrifying tribute: The child stealer¨. This is a chilling supernatural thriller in which Evil lurks, eager to take over the children. In The Offering, the son , Arthur ( Nick Blood), of the owner -Saul (Allan Corduner)- of a Jewish funeral home goes to his father's house, along with his pregnant wife (Emily Wiseman) , to reconcile with him, and get the money necessary to pay off his debts. However, in the morque located beneath his father's house, an ancient demon hopes to take the soul of his unborn child. Things go wrong, when they discover cryptic marks, horrible demonic circles weird symbols, as well supernatural phenoma and poltergeists successively happening. No soul is safe!.

Horror fairy tale whose original title for the film was "Abyzou" , being consistently paced, and finely played by starring duo : Nick Blood and Emily Wiseman and with a lot of screems, gore , twists and turns. The Offering (2022) is a creepy, claustrophobic and scary low- budget horror movie. A twisted plot in which a marriage and the elderly father become involved into a supernatural intrigue resulting in plunging themselves deeper and deeper towards a world of impossible occurrences and equally inexplicable findings .The screenplay is mediocry written and the tension increases as long as the mystery about 'Abizou' is disclosed . The film is average but passable, the potential of the theme being wasted on some Jewish customs, the Torah, Yiddish language and other Hebrew arcana that combined with the eerie morgue events and supernatural demons could have created even an explosive result, however this falls short. Weird terror movie that's heavy on fantastic happenings and gory scenes with acceptable though completely inside production design, colorful though dark cinematography and decent but no excessive special effects, incuding gruesomely vivid guts .

It contains adequate cinematography with plenty of darkness by Lorenzo Senatore. As well as thrilling, frightening and suspenseful musical score by composer Christopher Young who's an expert on sinister atmosphere as proved in: The Tall Man, Drag Me to Hell, Sinister , Untraceable, The Uninvited, The Ghost Maker, Dominion and several others . The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Oliver Park. This is a good director with a short but interesting career with penchant for Chillers and Horror movies. He has played, written or directed a few films with no much hits, such as: The Dare, Horizon, Strange Events (2014), Still (2017), Solar Impact (2019) ,A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio (2019). Rating: 5.5/10. Only for horror fans. Average but passable.

I was not impressed. The premise has potential (an ancient Jewish-kabbalistic demon is on the loose within an orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and turns on innocent people), and the setting in an old town-house with in the basement a mortuary is atmospheric and pleasantly creepy, but that's about it. The as horrific intended effects only come from several noise-burst-induced jump-scares and creaking doors, it's not enough to make this into a satisfying horror-flick.

The story is complicated, for instance the nature and intentions of the demon are unfathomable (it was apparently summoned to bring a dead loved-one back to life, but for some reason it now kills people and even feeds on children), and the CGI of the demon itself is hardly scary, it has the surprising form of a giant moose or deer with big antlers. The constant apparition of a ghost in the form of a little girl is rather cliché, and towards the end, when the main characters have some kind of climactic show-down with te demon, things get rather repetitive and in spite of all the turmoil even tiresome. The acting of Emily Wiseman is fine, but Nick Blood goes way over the top, with his constant wide-eyed horror-filled gazes or sinking into baffled stupors.

Arthur takes his wife Claire back to his family home, to meet his somewhat estranged father, Saul. Saul, an undertaker by profession has a new client to work on, a client that hides a nasty, terrifying secret.

I really wanted to like it, I tried my best to ignore the negative reviews and low rating, but it's not the easiest movie to get through.

I'll start off with the positives, it's nicely made and well acted, it doesn't lack in terms of atmosphere, there is a certain sense of claustrophobia throughout. Nick Blood and Allan Corduner are good as the troubled father and son.

My main issue was the pacing, if it were an animal in a race, it would be a sloth, it's very slow moving and laboured, every action makes you yawn and long for your pillow.

There's nothing here that we haven't seen before, maybe that accounts for the film's relative anonymity.

5/10.

I knew when I sat down to watch this, that I wasn't in for a masterpiece.

That being said, I was still left a bit disappointed with how reliant on (predictable) jump scares and the classic "eery soundtrack" this movie was.

At times it felt like a knock off of The Conjuring movies, with judaic lore sprinkled in to give it a semblance of originality.

If the characters had been more developed and they had been less indulgence on generic tropes, it might have been a movie worth rewatching.

All that being said, it wasn't a bad movie either. The special effects are well done, and the set design is above average. I also enjoyed the attention to detail in some scenes.

If you like possession films I think you'll enjoy this one!

As it stands it's an okay movie to watch at home in the couch with a large bowl of popcorn, and maybe some hot sauce to bring the spice this piece is lacking.

Saw this film at an early screening, was really surprised to find en emotionally charged studio horror film w a lot of heart wrapped in barbed wire. This film makes you scream out loud, cry at certain moments, and even laugh. The end packs a sick twist and I'm very curious to see how horror fans dissect it. There were a couple moments that perhaps leaned a bit too hard on jumpscares but overall you can really feel the genuine love and care from its filmmakers. I wasn't going to leave a review but after the q&a I realized this film is much deeper than i realized and so wanted to pay my respects. Special mention to Game of Throne's Paul Kaye who just killed it!