The Vigil

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.

The Vigil has the merit of taking place on a road rarely trodden by horror films: Jewish folklore. And that's about the only original thing about the film, which follows scenes already seen hundreds of times, with a hero with heavy post-traumatic stress in the background.

Despite an original starting idea and an interesting horrific setting, The Vigil seriously struggles to excite the viewer. The usual jump scares and sudden appearances do not work. The soundtrack, all shrill saturated screams, seems more frightened than the viewer. The misadventures of the protagonist are underwhelming, and the feeling of déjà-vu that reigns makes the film banal.

Quite disappointing, as the first half of the moving was promising, and I was excited to watch a horror movie with a Jewish backdrop.

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.

A good and original premise in a genre that recycles ideas to death. The problems were it was slow and hard to follow in spots. The other being the cinematography. The whole movie is very visually dark. Perhaps their attempt at film noir, but it was too much. It was distracting and again, made it hard to follow.

Tense, atmospheric and at times, genuinely scary, the movie has a great emotional and essential story about trauma and its manifestation. Told from the perspective of a man traumatised, himself, the movie explores the dark history of anti-semitism. I felt invested in the emotionally resonant story about loss and hope. I would just complain about the lack of threat by the demon throughout second half, making the proceedings feel less impactful. And also, it is not a really scary film, per se, but there are moments of gold here that work.