TIFF 2019: THE VIGIL IS A WAKE-UP CALL

You have to really admire the vision of programmer Peter Kuplowsky‘s for this year’s slate of Midnight Madness films at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Finding genre or arthouse films that are community-based and focus on their conflicts or horror is a feat to accomplish.  The goods are delivered to the audience of Midnight Madness with Keith Thomas‘ directorial debut of The Vigil.  This well-crafted horror follows Yakov, played by Dave Davis, who is a former Hasid who takes a paid gig to be a shomer for the night in the Hasidic community of Boro Park, Brooklyn.  He is to sit the vigil for a deceased Holocaust survivor and member of the Orthodox community.  Yakov’s main priority is to protect the soul from evil spirits which are traditionally the role of the shomer but an evil entity has much more planned for him.

Yakov is in no hurry to go back to his community and be an active participant, but his confidante and rabbi Reb Shulem, played by Menashe Lustig, wants him to take upon this overnight task and hopefully have him back where he truly belongs in practicing his faith.  Yakov accepts the gig and they both goto the house that he has to sit in for the night.  Although, the now lone resident and scary old widow Mrs. Litvak, played by Lynn Cohen, warns Yakov that he must leave and should not even think about staying the night.  Since there is money involved in this task, Yakov decides to stay and sit the vigil and face the music or horror for that matter.

The Vigil becomes a one-man show by Dave Davis in the small confines of a borough home giving the audience that claustrophobic feeling from the get-go.  To make things that more exciting, Yakov must face this demonic supernatural entity that terrifies him completely.  Yakov then begins to have some dark memories of a recent past where he is truly unable to move forward from and also becomes conflicted about reigniting his faith.  This is where the power of cinematographer Zach Kuperstein‘s (The Eyes of My Mother) skills come into play as the setting and the lighting gets darker and darker throughout the film giving the sense that there is no light at the end of this tunnel.   Being warned that he should not go upstairs, Yakov must inherit every inch of space in the main floor’s confines to steer away from the raging horror of this evil entity through the course of the night causing this whole situation to be horribly hysteric for him and the audience.

With an eerie, uncomfortable, spooky but enriching score by Michael Yezerski, Yakov’s overnight journey is that much more intensified.  Even though nothing is happening on the screen, the foreshadow of the heart-pounding score is a travel into the mind of Yakov and sometimes into that evil entity who is having his way with him.   What makes The Vigil so effective is that Yakov seems like he is going through a bad dream within a bad dream and needs to figure how to get out of it as quickly as he can to get that cash without getting himself hurt or going crazy before the sun comes up.  Sometimes, the sun will not come out tomorrow and Yakov better finds a way to make that happen.  This film along with Saint Maud in the Midnight Madness slate of TIFF 2019 goes to show that you do not need a whole hell of a lot to have a great horror story.  Just part of hell is enough.

This article is co-presented by AGJR Enterprise Inc. specializing in Financial Services