There are tons of horror movies about Christian rites and rituals, but very few that explore Jewish religious traditions, let alone in a thoughtful and respectful way. Writer-director Keith Thomas takes on that challenge with his debut feature The Vigil, a relatively straightforward horror movie that feels creative and fresh thanks to its grounding in a specific faith tradition. The Vigil not only draws on Judaism in general, but also takes place within an insular Jewish community in Borough Park, Brooklyn, where the Orthodox community lives separated from the outside life of the city. Adding to that portrait of an isolated enclave within the city, most of The Vigil’s dialogue is in Yiddish.
The Vigil opens not in Borough Park, but elsewhere in New York City, at a sort of support group for Jewish people who’ve left the secluded Orthodox community to join the wider world. Yakov Ronen (Dave Davis) is still adjusting to secular life, struggling to find a job and pay his rent. He’s also suffering from unspecified mental health issues, having spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Yakov receives encouragement from his fellow Orthodox expatriates, all of whom have gone through the same adjustment period. He even garners the attention of Sarah (Malky Goldman), an attractive young woman who invites him for coffee and gives him her number. Yakov, who’s only just learned how to use a cell phone and is used to strict gender separation, Googles “how to talk to women.”
Yakov can’t entirely escape the pull of his former community, though, and he’s susceptible to a plea from Reb Shulem (Menashe Lustig), a religious leader who corners Yakov after the meeting. Shulem offers the cash-strapped Yakov $400 to serve as a shomer, someone who sits shiva (the Jewish tradition of holding vigil over the recently deceased) when family members are unavailable or unable. So Yakov reluctantly agrees to return to Borough Park and spend five hours overnight with the body of a local Holocaust survivor who has just died.
It’s clear from the start that something isn’t right in this situation. Shulem tells Yakov that the previous shomer literally ran off, and when the two men arrive at the deceased’s home, his widow (Lynn Cohen) insists that they leave immediately. But Yakov needs the money, and Shulem assures him that old Mrs. Litvak is suffering from dementia and will simply sleep through the night. Yakov settles in to earn his fee inside this very creepy house with a dead body and an unstable old lady.
What follow are a lot of standard horror-movie mysterious noises and lurking apparitions, but Thomas deploys them effectively, and The Vigil has built up Yakov enough as a character that he’s worth caring about. There are periodic flashbacks to a traumatic moment in Yakov’s past that motivated both his exit from Borough Park and his mental breakdown, and Thomas reveals bits and pieces of the incident over time, building suspense but never cheating the audience. Likewise, the nature of the supernatural infestation in the Litvak house becomes clearer as the movie goes on, thanks to some cryptic words from Mrs. Litvak and a familiar-looking wall of clippings and photos in the basement.
Yakov also eventually watches a literal video explaining the threat he’s facing, but even this clichéd bit of exposition is handled in a creepy, understated way. Most of The Vigil takes place within the confines of the house, and Thomas finds creative ways to use the same space with multiple approaches. A particularly unsettling moment toward the end of the movie involves Yakov simply walking down a hallway, as the walls bulge with ghouls and the passage seems to go on forever.
And while The Vigil never loses sight of its aim of scaring the audience, it never loses sight of its thematic concerns, either. Yakov’s trauma is directly tied to his struggle with his Jewish identity, and the demon itself could be representative of unhealthy ties that hold him (or anyone trying to leave a repressive environment) back from moving forward with his life. Davis gives the character a sense of vulnerability and determination that makes his personal journey about more than just defeating a nasty demon. Veteran character actor Cohen makes for a perfect mix of sinister and kindly as the elderly Mrs. Litvak.
The relatively small-scale production offers only brief glimpses of the demon itself, but it’s just enough to make the creature convincingly dangerous. The production design emphasizes the claustrophobic nature of the cramped Litvak house, and the cinematography keeps the images dim, even with the lights on, as if Yakov can never quite see his path forward. It’s all pretty familiar horror material, but Yakov is experiencing it from his own unique perspective, and in that way, the audience is, too.
Starring Dave Davis, Lynn Cohen, Malky Goldman and Menashe Lustig, The Vigil opens Friday, Feb. 26 in select theaters and on VOD.