The Vigil

Although not perfect, I felt this was an extremely solid debut from Keith Thomas.

There's a lot to enjoy here for fans of horror, the most interesting part being its unique Jewish perspective. The lead was great and I appreciated the different take on the typical haunted house story. The feeling of dread never left my body, the atmosphere it created is exactly what I'm looking for in a horror movie. Unfortunately, there are a couple of cheap jump scares which seemed needless.

Overall a very well rounded horror film with an interesting take and a pretty awesome final act. Highly recommended.

Sorry about the title, I'm not familiar with Jewish culture and religion.

As for the movie, I thought it was mostly enjoyable, but the reason for the 5 stars is because there isn't enough scares throughout the movie to call it a good horror flick.

A solid slow burn that really heats up. Dark and unsettling. The type of film that gets under your skin and stays with you. Jewish horror films are an untapped well. We need to see more!

The title cards at the beginning of 'The Vigil' made for very interesting reading to me. I had never heard of the Jewish process of watching over the soul of a dead body soon after it dies. It does present itself as a great set-up for a horror movie though. For some reason it was very strange watching Hasidic Jews as the characters in a horror film. I can't think of another film in that genre based around them (I'm sure there is, I just haven't seen it). The film has some good moments but ultimately falls short of turning into anything great.

The film is well paced. It starts out with the usual character introductions and some exposition, but then once we get to the house where the action is due to take place the film kicks into gear pretty quickly and doesn't relent for a long while. The middle of this film is by far the strongest third. There are some good scares and a little mystery element as to exactly what is going on.

Sadly the ending of 'The Vigil' let the film down in my opinion. It was very "meh" and left the film as a very forgettable experience unfortunately. Playing it safe when it comes to endings is never the way to go for my liking. However, even though it ends on a bit of a flat note there is enough quality horror through the middle to make this worth a watch. It will probably be a film you will enjoy the most if your expectations aren't too high however.

Quite original with the setting and the scare-jumps for this movie. I enjoyed it from start to end, and found the main actor to be a very good and believable character. The only reason that I did not rate this movie even higher was because the main climax of the horror lasted less than 5 minutes and I was expecting more from that aspect.