Horror has long treated the female body as a neutral container for evil, a blank slate upon which patriarchal fears are projected and then violently purged. The Dybbuk, a contemporary adaptation of S. Ansky’s classic play, arrives with this weight. While the marketing highlights Steve Guttenberg as Rabbi Azrael, a mystic leading a dangerous exorcism, we must look closer at who is being possessed, who is performing the ritual, and whose silence is being broken. The film recently wrapped production in Los Angeles, and while the cast list reads like a standard genre ensemble, the narrative architecture suggests a deeper interrogation of power, grief, and the spiritual burden placed on women.
The Male Gaze of the Mystic
Guttenberg steps into the role of Rabbi Azrael, a spiritual leader tasked with removing a dead man’s spirit from a young woman in his congregation. This setup is a familiar trope: the male authority figure wielding religious knowledge to 'fix' the broken female subject. Craig Bierko, known for his work in Cinderella Man, plays Sender, the father, while Beth Grant, the formidable character actress from No Country For Old Men, portrays Frayda, the grandmother. Their presence anchors the film in a lineage of familial duty, but it is the grandmother’s role that demands our feminist scrutiny. Frayda is not merely a background figure; she is the matriarchal witness to trauma, a role that often involves holding the family’s shame in silence until it erupts.
Reclaiming the Vessel
Lee Amir-Cohen makes his feature directorial debut, writing the screenplay alongside Ashley Bua. Their collaboration signals a shift in who gets to tell these stories. By adapting Ansky’s play, they are navigating a text that has historically been interpreted through a lens of male spiritual supremacy. However, contemporary horror is increasingly interested in the idea that possession is not just an invasion, but a manifestation of suppressed voice. When a woman is possessed, it is often because her own narrative has been overwritten by the demands of men—fathers, husbands, rabbis, and societies. The exorcism, therefore, becomes a complex metaphor for whether the woman can reclaim her own body and story, or if she must remain a vessel for the male-dominated religious order.
The plot centers on the tension between the living and the dead, but the true horror lies in the power dynamics of the living. As Rabbi Azrael performs the ritual, the audience is left to question: is this salvation or control? With Guttenberg, Bierko, and Grant leading the charge, The Dybbuk offers a chance to see if modern horror can move beyond the trope of the possessed woman as a mere plot device. We need stories where the exorcism does not erase the woman’s trauma, but acknowledges it. Until then, we watch, waiting for the screen to reflect not just our fears, but our survival.
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