The Golem

Like The Witch or Hereditary, this is a simple, slow-moving film that's about atmosphere and isolation and creepiness, not horror or jump scares. The telling of the Golem tale is very accurate to the most common versions, so if you are a folklore fan you will be satisfied. And it's only 90 minutes long.

This one proved to be decently more successful than I had originally anticipated. It is most certainly a slow burn but more in the way of tension building than boring. I definitely feel as though there could have been a few more layers to the story. It has a thorough plot line but not all THAT much happened. Could have picked up the pace and given us a little more to work with as far as character development and plot goes.

I was particularly impressed with some of the shots and the quality. Every so often there was a still that I could have hung up on my wall. Very visually pleasing with really nice lighting. Also the acting was quite good all around. One thing that I found distracting was how put together a lot of the ladies looked. Make up and perfectly styled hair brought me out of the moment at times.

All in all this wasn't extraordinary but solidly entertaining with some really strong aspects. Would recommend.

This movie was well shot, well acted, and the special effects were adequate. The plot, action, and horror were all just missing for the majority of the movie. The story is really simple, it's centered around a small Jewish community in Europe during the 1700's when a bout of plague starts ravaging a neighboring community of Catholic's. The Catholic's blame the plague on Jewish "magic" basically because their community was left untouched due to how remote and segregated their lifestyles are.

Well an angry mob of Catholic's arrive with a very sick child and demand the Jewish folk cure her or face death. One of the towns folk takes it upon herself to summon the Golem, an ancient protector formed out of clay and tasked with defending the Jewish people. Which it...kinda does?

So far everything is fine, simple and easy to understand as that's essentially the whole plot. The problem is almost NOTHING happens for the majority of the movie and it's extremely slow paced. When the "horror" finally happens there's only about 10 minutes of movie left and they rush right through it without showing much of it. And then it ends.

So not terrible, but that's the best review I can personally write without giving any spoilers. It's watchable but you're not missing anything if you skip it.

The reviews of this being "too slow" or "not a horror" are honestly missing what makes a horror movie a horror. It doesn't have to be slashers or jumpscares, horror can be tales of the strange and macabre. Like the monumental classics. This film would stand right alongside the classics of the 30s, though it has more gore. This movie is an excellent example of those alternatives. A dark story of loss, vengeance, and fear. One set in a very interesting historical time period and based on actual lore. With this, the film itself has gorgeous cinematography and a wonderful score. If you love classic horror, dark dramas, or just fine cinema then ignore the unnecessarily low reviews and check this one out.

I have mixed feeling about The Golem. I was up for watching a horror movie but I don't think you could categorize this movie as such. There are some gore moments but you never get that creepy tension while watching The Golem, a kid covered in mud isn't the most frightening thing to watch. The acting was okay, nothing award winning but nothing terrible either. The story is something new so that's a good point but it's also much too slow, too many moments where you just wait for something to happen and that is, if you're a bit tired, not good.