The End of Days is here in not Jerusalem but JeruZalem. Get ready for one wild horror flick! Courtesy of Epic Pictures Releasing.“There are three gates to hell. One in the desert, one in the ocean, and one in Jerusalem.”
– Jeremiah 19, Talmud
Duh duh duhhh! Scared yet? Today is not just Friday the 13th but Friday the 13th of OCTOBER. One word: Halloween. Actually, two words: Halloween and horror. If you’ve been following this blog for a while now, you may know that I am a huge, very annoying horror movie buff, and I especially love foreign horror movies. I always try to keep these posts aligned with seasons or Jewish holidays, and come October, I write about nothing but scary Jewish movies. I’ve written before about the dearth of “Jewish-themed” horror movies in the world. They’re there, but you won’t find a ton. Even though some occasional horror movies are submitted to PJFM, it’s still pretty rare. I also highly doubt you’ll find upcoming Jewish horror movies in theaters every month.
Nevertheless, when these movies do come out of the woodwork, they make an impact, plus they are a LOT of fun. Today’s film, JERUZALEM (2015), also cleverly titled “JeruZalem,” is a found footage horror movie by Doron and Yoav Paz, Israeli brothers most known for Plan A (2021), a Holocaust revenge thriller based on true events. JERUZALEM is the polar opposite and hopefully not based on true events because if it was, God help us all. The Paz Brothers’s film starts off slow and light and transcends into a literal nightmare that you can’t wake up from. It’s gory, campy, claustrophobic, and passionately made by two fellas who love to scare the pants off you. This also may be the only “Yom Kippur horror movie” ever made.
Before I begin, that quote at the beginning of this post is real and stated at the start of the film. Foreshadowing? You bet. When JERUZALEM begins, we see shaky camera footage of what appears to be a woman chained to some wall in a Jerusalem neighborhood. She vomits grubs. Rabbis, priests, and imams surround the woman as she begins to growl. She sprouts wings (yep…) before one of the guys shoots her. This whole time, as well, we hear a narrator recount the story of a woman whose son alleged she had returned from the grave in the year 1972. The men came to perform an exorcism, but obviously, things went downhill.
Cut to present day and best friends Sarah (Danielle Jadelyn) and Rachel (Yael Grobglas, Jane the Virgin), two lively Jewish Americans, are on their way to Tel Aviv for vacation. Sarah is mourning the recent loss of her brother, but her loving father and friend cheer her up. Her dad – and this is where the camp factor comes in – has just purchased smart glasses for her. These are a real thing, incase you’re wondering. When Sarah puts them on, we, the viewers, see what she sees, hence making JERUZALEM a “found footage” movie. When she moves her head, the camera moves in her direction. The smart glasses also have a bunch of cool tricks, like identifying people by their faces and instantly bringing up their Facebook profiles. Sarah can also ask the glasses for something, like a digital map, and it comes up. You know, just like Siri. (Was Siri invented already when this movie came out? I can’t remember.)
On the flight, the girls meet Kevin (Yon Tumarkin), a handsome young guy, who convinces them to come to Jerusalem with him first for Yom Kippur. Sarah, pretty attracted to him already, convinces Rachel to go. They thus make a detour for the Holy City, walking through the crowded yet gorgeous blocks of the neighborhood. They arrive at their hostel, run by Omar (Tom Graziani), an Israeli-Arab. Although their “premiere suite” they are offered ends up being a shoebox, it’s no big deal. The girls get gussied up and enjoy their time in town, with Sarah occasionally mourning upon thinking of her brother.
Unfortunately, this is a horror movie which means that ominous things will soon occur. Sarah gets her bag stolen by a kid on the street. There’s a loony walking around the city dressed as King David who urges Sarah, Rachel, and Kevin to leave Jerusalem before Yom Kippur arrives. Sarah begins hearing howling at night. Kevin begins hearing human screams at night. The group walks by the TV one evening and see there was a bloody murder in town.
What’s going on?!
“The skies open up [literally] and God judges all our sins,” one character says.
Well, I may have to give it away here, even though the plot synopsis for JERUZALEM already does. The End of Days is here in the movie, and Hell is now entering Jerusalem. Giants begin walking through the city and demons fly around, biting and infecting villagers, “zombifying” them. The IDF arrives and starts bombing the city. The Paz Brothers present this in delightfully fun, over-the-top action sequences with solid special effects and some incredibly haunting imagery. (The last shot of the film is breathtaking.) They are having the time of their lives, even incorporating humor into some scenes. When Sarah and Kevin kiss, she’s still wearing the glasses, so we see an extreme close-up of Kevin’s forehead set to the sound effects of loud, wet smooching.
JERUZALEM marks the end – or hiatus, perhaps – of the found footage genre. Since 2016, the genre hasn’t been around much. Blair Witch (2016), the sequel to the film that pretty much invented this horror subgenre, is the last film I can think of that used this technique. Perhaps moviegoers grew tired of it or directors ran out of ideas. Personally, I miss it. When I was younger, my friends and I were ECSTATIC over the release of a new found footage horror movie, from Cloverfield (2008) to Paranormal Activity (2009) to even bloodier ones like Quarantine (2008). JERUZALEM borrows a little bit from everything. We have the obvious shaky and intense camera mixed with monsters, supernatural demons, zombie infections, and one of the holiest Jewish holidays all in one film. It’s a lot, maybe too overwhelming for some, but it’s absolutely a late-night popcorn flick.
This is all silly yet incredibly bold filmmaking. When was the last time you ever saw a horror action movie set in Jerusalem? Not a serious drama or comedy about Orthodox families or Israeli families or the conflict or anything like that. A horror/ACTION movie with winged demons and impossibly tall demon giants sauntering near the Kotel?
In my research, it doesn’t look like JERUZALEM premiered at a lot of prestigious film festivals, apart from the Jerusalem Film Festival. It eventually got a limited release at the start of 2016. I had always heard of this movie because of its awesome title, but I had no idea it was this crazy. It’s possible that the notion of showing a bloody horror movie set in the Holy Land was too controversial at the time. Movies are only getting more and more original these days. In the years to come, I can expect even crazier Jewish horror movies than JERUZALEM to hit the big screen.
JERUZALEM is available to rent on YouTube and Google Play.