Director: Doron Paz, Yoav Paz
Year: 2019
Country: Israel
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
During an outbreak of a deadly plague, a group of foreign peasants bring the deadly disease to a remote Jewish village in the countryside, causing a local woman to conjure a mythical Golem to protect them only to find the creature far more dangerous and deadlier to control than she imagined.
Review:
This was a highly enjoyable and entertaining offering. The film's at it's best when it manages to mix together the folklore of the original story with many modern-day allegations. The first scene of the girl wandering into the church to witness it firsthand offers a strong and startling first impression of the creature, and to lead in from that to the series of slice-of-life depictions that are shown here of life in their village that features how they interact with their fellow peasants and the carefree lifestyle they enjoy which is interrupted gives this a solid opening. With the violence that erupts once the other villagers arrive bearing the marks of the plague and the effect that has on her friends who then begin contracting the disease themselves, this impetus to create such a creature becomes a lot more reasonable as we're shown the necessity of creating one and what drove them to do so.
Once this gets the creature unleashed and moving, this one really utilizes some enjoyable scenes of that occurring. From it rescuing her from a beating by the gang of thugs holding the village hostage out in the middle of the woods to a rather harrowing encounter in the village where it rescues their people from an ill-fated attempt to remove the other villagers from forcing themselves on them, there are some rather fun scenes here depicting the power of the creature in action which is pretty fun. Keeping the creatures power solely to the mythical actions that were imparted upon it where it's only being used for protection even if it means taking out the villagers who try to kill it which in turn puts this into a frantic sequence at the end as they try to use their teachings to stop it which is all fun and exciting for it's clever utilizations of that formula. Occurring with the fantastic village raid and plenty of gruesome moments, this is a fun encounter and really holds this one up overall.
There are a few problems with this one. The main issue found here is the fact that this one tends to drastically simplify the process for creating the creature to the point of ludicrous. It takes her only a matter of a few minutes seemingly through the montage which manages to produce the necessary steps to bring the being to life which begs the question of why it's so rare if it happens that quickly and easily. As well, we're treated to a major cheat by having the creature come to life off-screen after a seemingly lazily-performed ritual to construct it. These elements, which are a major part of the story featured here, tend to be glossed over and ignored for the most part.
Likewise, the other minor factor featured here is the fact that there's not much in the way of action here once the creature actually gets unleashed. With a lot of focus on the villagers, mainly centered around the factions within the village that want to overthrow the oppressing group for being there but also around the ill-fated attempt to cure the sick girl which really doesn't go anywhere and serves as a cliched setup that's seen coming a mile away as well as the wrongful murder of the villager they blame on the invading horde, this tends to be quite lacking in action due to focusing on the relationships within the villagers instead and making this somewhat slower for some in the middle of the film. Other than these issues, the film doesn't have much wrong with it.
Overview: ****/5
While there are a few minor issues to be had with this one, the fact that there's far more to like with what's presented and that those overwhelm the flaws regardless makes the film quite enjoyable overall. This is definitely recommended to those familiar with the original folklore tale or are interested in what this is about, while those that aren't fond of this style should heed caution.
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