Movie Review: Keith Thomas's “The Vigil” (2019)

The Vigil, written and directed by Keith Thomas as part of his directorial debut, is a largely paint-by-numbers supernatural horror affair that manages to expand the Jewish horror subgenre in an enjoyable way, while also underscoring the idea that sometimes tropes can be beneficial for outside audiences.

Boasting a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, The Vigil centers around Yakov Ronen (Dave Davis), a mentally ill man who is hired at the last minute to keep vigil over the body of a member of his former Orthodox Jewish community. In this time of transition—between departing his own community and keeping watch over the body of a Holocaust survivor until dawn—Yakov is also the target of a malevolent spirit known as a Mazzik that he must reckon with before his duties are ended, lest this spirit haunt him for the rest of his life. As he keeps watch, Yakov must contend with personal demons, as well as historical and cultural ghosts.

With the color palette and narrative beats that horror movie fans will recognize from Blumhouse Production flicks, The Vigil largely keeps to well-established territory in supernatural horror, much like JeruZalem (2015), another Jewish horror movie, written and directed by Doron and Yoav Paz. Though both films have different scales of focus and deal with somewhat different elements of the supernatural in Judaism, JeruZalem largely depends on the well-established trope of a tourist’s vacation gone horribly wrong to introduce viewers to unfamiliar religious concepts, and The Vigil relies just as much on the intersection of possession and ghost story to set its own stage. (Though the requisite information—what is known as a Shomer, someone who keeps watch over the newly dead, according to The Vigil—is summed up well in the beginning, a simplicity that allows for a fairly smooth tie-in with Yakov’s own struggles with mental illness.)

Cast performances and interpersonal dynamics added a layer of emotional authenticity that supported the story. Davis expresses Yakov’s tension and uncertainty with a believable waver, underscored by the character’s inability to communicate and truly connect with others. Reb Shulem (Menashe Lustig), the religious leader who hires Yakov to keep watch over the recently departed, plays to the guilt and desire to draw Yakov back into the community. The performance that shone the most, though, was Lynn Cohen as Mrs. Litvak, the wife of the recently deceased Rubin. Though the trope of “scary old woman” is one of the staples of horror, Cohen’s talent in conveying the weight of living with a Holocaust survivor and subsequently chasing their children away for their own good is masterful. Cohen’s presence on screen is haunted by present and past beauty, and everything Mrs. Litvak has had to give up for the sake of being faithful to her husband, as well as giving him her support.

The score, written by Michael Yezerski, known for his work on The Devil’s Candy, is both haunting and beautiful in its own right, though it falls well within what horror fans likely expect from a supernatural horror movie score. Sound direction was also passably decent, with jumpscares delivered in an industry-standard fashion.

Based purely on personal preference, the attention The Vigil pays to haunted media (when Yakov finds an old video from Mr. Litvak, for example) at this intersection of haunting and possession is also a nice touch, though this material, too, is used only in genre-established ways. And that is really what the heart of The Vigil is for me: a paint-by-numbers horror film that does the important work of widening the footprint of Jewish horror, while also otherwise keeping safely within subgenre parameters, at the risk of losing some cultural and religious identity in context. If you’re a fan of religious or supernatural horror, The Vigil is the perfect watch for a Friday night with popcorn and a mental itch for demonology. 

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Article written by Laura Kemmerer

Laura tuned into horror with an interest in what these movies and books can tell us about ourselves and what societies fear. She is most interested in horror focused around the supernatural, folklore, the occult, Gothic themes, haunted media, landscape as a character, and hauntology (focusing on lost or broken futures).