THE OFFERING: Jewish Horror Served Up Raw

There have been many possession films over the years and all of them have something in common; the priest that is brought in to preform the exorcism. The Offering (here comes the pun) offers up something different by setting it in the Jewish community. There is no Devil or Hell in their religious beliefs, all demons and evil act as free agents. No one attempts to expel the demon, they want to trap it. In this film they are dealing with the “Taker of Children” and it is set up with a written message at the beginning of the film.

The movie opens with an older gentleman performing a ritual of protection before the demon confronts him, goading him out of his protective circle. When the demon attacks, the man traps the “Taker of Children” inside himself and plunges a knife into his chest, this forces the demon to be trapped in a pendant and the man to die in the process. It is a fairly spooky beginning to the film and definitely grabbed my attention. This leads us to our main characters, Claire and Arthur (Emily Wiseman and Nick Blood) arriving at Arthur’s father’s house, Saul, played by Allan Corduner. Saul runs a mortuary and a funeral home, the location 90% of the film takes place.

This movie spends a lot of its runtime building suspense and mystery as to who the demon is really wanting to attach itself to, it’s very effective in that way. The biggest part of the story is the journey Arthur is taking trying to reconnect with his father Saul who he believes wasn’t there enough for him as a child and early adult. Of course, Claire being pregnant really ratchets up the unease with a demon on the loose, the old man from the beginning of the film was obviously brought to Saul’s for all his final resting place needs.

What The Offering Got Right

Oliver Park directed this film from a script by Hank Hoffman and both did outstanding. Park does an amazing job playing with the atmosphere and setting the tone, the down moments in the film feel needed and not drawn out for no reason, there is always a payoff. He definitely uses interesting shots to establish mood and the way he moves a camera through a scene tells a very specific story. The script was polished with a very clear vision and they were able to capture that with ease.

The actors in the piece are all on top of their games, turning in subtle performances that drew me in. There are no weak links there. Emily Wiseman as Claire really stood out as giving it her all. In a story like this, it can sometimes be hard to maintain a level of believability but I never found myself doing anything other than enjoying the ride, as creepy and supernatural as it might have been.

They also did a great job of explaining the story without having entire scenes devoted to exposition. The titles at the beginning of the film helped that but also the way they treated the dialogue and what they chose to show and not show us as the events unfolded. Nothing felt forced and I was able to follow along just fine. I’m saying this as someone who wasn’t aware of many of the Jewish traditions they touched on in the film before I watched, so even someone who is as clueless as I was beforehand can keep up easily.

What The Offering Got Wrong

I’m a musician at heart, one who loves to write sure, but a musician at heart so one thing I always end up picking apart when I’m watching any film is, the sound mix. In the case of this movie, they do the one thing I loath more than any other, they use sudden bursts of loud noises to invoke a reaction. It works nearly every time but my reaction is never fear, it’s always an annoyance. It is a tried and true way to get people in a crowded theater to jump, sure, but at home, it’s only good for waking my children because I have it turned up loud enough to hear what people are saying. What I’m getting at here is, I’m talking to the filmmakers now, stop it.

This film was also filled with tropes we’ve all seen a lot of times. This in itself isn’t a problem, they’re tropes for a reason, I just wanted to see less of them. I’m not even saying they did them badly, they didn’t, I just think in this day and age we can all afford to be a little more original. It doesn’t always pay off but at least it’s your own thing. Setting the possession story in the Orthodox Jewish tradition was a nice change of pace.

I’m on the fence about the pacing of this movie. At times I really love the slow momentum building the tension until I need to see what happens but at other times I’m begging for it to just go. I guess I can’t be too upset because they did keep it consistent but maybe they could have chosen their moments a little better. I’m nitpicking at this point.

Conclusion:

At 93 minutes The Offering is a quick and creepy watch. It doesn’t require a lot of your time to deliver its story and that is a great thing. A lot of what this movie deals with is heavy, from the possession story to the father and son trying to reconcile a relationship later in life. It ties together all the threads at the end and I have to say, though it pushed the budget to its limit, the design of the demon was pretty cool.

This movie really has franchise potential which is something I usually don’t like to say, I feel like more movies should be one-and done, but there are ways that this can be a recurring series that delivers shivers and chills. It was well done and I really enjoyed this movie, visually and story-wise. It has me excited to see what Oliver Park does next.

The Offering was released on January 13, 2023!

Watch The Offering