‘The Vigil’
The Vigil follows a night in the life of Yakvoc (Dave Davis), a man who has rejected the Orthodox Jewish faith and is strapped for cash. He’s hired as a shomer—someone who prays over the recently deceased—to sit watch over the body of a strange hermit while the hermit’s wife with dementia sleeps upstairs. It soon becomes apparent that the dead man was haunted by a Mazzik (Jewish demon) that feasts on tragedy, a demon that quickly sets its sights on Yakvoc as his next host. Moody, atmospheric and genuinely unsettling, this modern Jewish horror movie feels fresh and exciting. It’s about time the genre looks outside of traditional Christian demons to explore fresh horrors.