Jeffrey Dean Morgan talks 'The Possession'
Not since the movie "Seven" has a box been such a source of chills.
In the new horror film "The Possession," Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a divorced dad who purchases an unusual box for his daughter at a yard sale. It turns out that the box holds a Dybbuk, an evil spirit that tries to possess the young girl.
Oddly enough, the movie is based on a true story that originated from an eBay listing selling a Dybbuk box that supposedly had caused a lot of problems for its owners.
amNewYork spoke with Morgan about the film.
Were you looking to do a horror film? Trust me when I tell you this, I wasn't looking to do a horror movie. I'm not a huge fan of the genre. I think the genre lost itself into jump scares, lots of gore, f------ found-footage and shaky camera crap that I can't f------ bare. I can't stand it. So it had lost a little bit of its appeal.
Then what made you decide to do "The Possession"? This script kind of sat around in my house for a little while, but attached to the script was this great letter from Ole Bornedal, the director, [with] the reasons I should do this movie and what he thought I could bring to it. And it was generally just a great ass-kissing letter, which made me read the script eventually. I read it and, frankly, I loved it.
What did you like about the script? Look, I had the same thoughts that everyone else is going to have: it's another f------ "Exorcist" movie - how many times can this be done? And I read the script and I was like, "Wow, there's something to this." There's some great character development happening already on the page. And the whole Dybbuk box I found kind of super-frightening.
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan calls himself a skeptic, but even he could not deny that there were some strange, unexplained things going on while filming "The Possession":
-- In 25 years of being in the business, having a lightbulb explode during key scenes in movies more than once, I've never seen happen ... much less happen five to six times during the course of film."
-- You're in a closed studio: No fans, no windows. You've got lights all over - it's usually pretty warm in the studio, and all the sudden \[there's\] a cool breeze coming from nowhere."
-- We had wrapped and they put all our props, including the Dybbuk box, into a storage unit. Like, two days after we wrapped, it burned to the ground. It was investigated and it wasn't an electrical fire, it wasn't arson. They have no idea how it started."