Steve A. Wiggins
For about three decades after The Exorcist (1973), possession movies tended to be Catholic. It was as if demons were a distinctively Catholic problem. Demons, in fact, are recognized worldwide in a variety of different forms, not all of them evil. In the three major monotheistic religions they do tend to be enemies of God and should be banished whenever possible. Historically speaking, Jews, Christians, and Muslims cooperated in exorcisms, something that is cited in The Unborn (David S. Goyer, 2009). Goyer’s movie features a Jewish exorcism involving an Episcopal priest and some nonbelievers. As such, it stands as another example of Jewish horror, albeit hybridized.
Watching The Unborn for the first time, it’s easy to suppose that it’s going to be entirely secular. At least for the first twenty minutes or so. Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) is a college-aged woman (maybe high school, but the topic discussed in the one classroom scene feels pretty undergrad) who has a creepy experience while babysitting. More follow. Her boyfriend Mark (Cam Gigandet) and best friend Romy (Meagan Good) think the strange happenings are nothing to worry about. Then her eyes start changing color. And yet more creepy things happen. But Casey has a backstory too. So far, so secular.
Casey’s mother died by suicide while living in an asylum. Since her mother had been adopted, Casey doesn’t know her maternal grandparents, but she finally finds her mother’s birth mother (Jane Alexander) in a retirement home. It turns out that her grandmother is a Holocaust survivor, and thus we’re introduced to the fact that Casey is Jewish (non-practicing, apparently not even aware). She’s also, unbeknownst to her, a twin. Her brother died in the womb, and her parents never told her.
Casey’s grandmother explains that in Auschwitz, she had been experimented on along with her twin brother. Nazis had a fascination with twins, and they operated on the siblings’ eyes, which accounts for Casey’s eyes changing color. The grandmother’s twin died but his body was resurrected as a dybbuk, a Jewish demon that’s the soul of a dead person in limbo. She killed her brother’s body again, but the dybbuk has been following her family into the third generation. At this point in The Unborn, we realize we’re deep in Jewish lore.
Researching the topic, Casey steals a Jewish mystical book from the library that she takes to a rabbi she doesn’t know (Gary Oldman), asking him for an exorcism. (There are several holes in the plot, but that’s beside the point.) Rabbi Sendak naturally refuses. Then the dybbuk begins attacking others besides Casey, killing Romy and even threatening the rabbi. Rabbi Sendak, who doesn’t really believe in demons, invites Fr. Arthur Wyndham (Idris Elba), an Episcopal priest, to assist in the exorcism. Since this is to be a cross-faith effort, they want to choose a place of painful associations for the ritual. Casey chooses the derelict asylum where her mother died.
The exorcism itself involves Rabbi Sendak reading from the occult Jewish book in Hebrew with the other assistants (including boyfriend Mark) responding in English. The dybbuk appears, dispatching everyone but Casey, the rabbi, and Mark. Mark becomes possessed, and rather like Fr. Karras in The Exorcist, dies to destroy the demon.
Now, The Unborn was panned by critics, although it performed well at the box office, so obviously there’s something to commend it. It never reached the fame of The Exorcist, but then, few films do. Four years later another film would feature a Jewish exorcism—The Possession (Ole Bornedal, 2012). Also based on the concept of a dybbuk, there were hints of Holocaust imagery in that story as well. Again, in The Possession, there is a family with no obvious connection to Judaism that turns to a rabbi for help. The main difference between the two movies is that, in The Possession, Rabbi Tzadok (Matisyahu) is Hasidic. In The Unborn, the Jewish denomination isn’t spelled out, but Rabbi Sendak appears to fit more in the Reformed category. The exorcisms are also quite different. Rabbi Tzadok uses traditional elements, which he carefully explains. Rabbi Sendak, really knowing little about the demonic, uses an occult book—vaguely identified as Kabbalah—and the only trappings are an amulet that Casey received from her grandmother. These rites don’t have the drama of Catholic exorcism, demanding the name of the demon and personally evicting it. In The Unborn the ritual is a responsive reading that eventually includes Psalm 91, which is frequently used for protection from demons (in real life).
Both movies portray non-religious, and perhaps non-Jewish, families turning to rabbis for help with Jewish demons. The dybbuk never really made its way into Christian demonic lore. In fact, The Unborn‘s Fr. Wyndham explains that he’ll participate but that this won’t be a “Christian exorcism.” This suggests that cinematic demons respond to religion-appropriate rites, while the religious belief of the exorcists may vary. Both Christian and Jewish demons can move from one victim to another fairly easily. Any rite will do.
The twin motif also differentiates The Unborn from many exorcism movies. In cultures worldwide, twins have been singled out as special, and sometimes as mystical. In Judaism twins are, not surprisingly, interpreted in the light of the Hebrew Bible. There are a few stories of significant twins, but none so influential as Esau and Jacob. Jacob, who was born second, was grasping his brother’s heel. Famously renamed “Israel,” Jacob becomes the literal father of the nation and just one of many younger brothers to supplant elder siblings. The Unborn, however, uses twins as a vehicle for possession. The grandmother, wanting to keep her daughter safe from the dybbuk, put her up for adoption. Her daughter nevertheless conceived twins, and the dead brother in utero is the gateway for his sister Casey’s demonic troubles.
The unacknowledged Christian twin is the famous “doubting Thomas,” one of Jesus’ disciples. According to the Gospel of John he was known as “the twin.” One of the more radical suggestions made is that he was the twin of Jesus himself. That idea never really caught on, despite the Manichaean possibilities it offers.
With its veiled then revealed Judaism, The Unborn is the first real horror movie to introduce the dybbuk into the canon of demonic monsters. It also pointed out that you don’t have to be Catholic to be troubled with possession. And you don’t need to be a priest to perform a successful exorcism. In fact, exorcism can be an ecumenical effort. Of course, the movie ends by revealing that Casey is pregnant with Mark’s twins. One has to wonder if they represent Christianity and Judaism struggling in her womb like Esau and Jacob.
Related: Reclaiming Jewish Monsters in The Offering; Is the Golem the Perfect Jewish Monster?
Steve A. Wiggins is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Carroll College, and Rutgers and Montclair State Universities. He is the author of a book about possession movies, Nightmares with the Bible (Lexington, 2020) and the recently published Devil’s Advocates series book at Liverpool University Press on The Wicker Man. Check out his website. Steve has also written for Horror Homeroom on “What To Do When the Exorcist is Absent,” “The Golem as the Perfect Monster,” sex and death in The Lighthouse and The Witch, the found-footage film, Borderlands, “Reclaiming Jewish Monsters in The Offering,” and “Exorcising the Pope’s Exorcist.”
