Title: The Golem

Year: 2018

Genre: Horror

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Watch Time: 95 minutes

Platform: Netflix

Date Watched: July 1, 2019

Recognized Actors: I did not recognize any of the actors.

Brief Summary of Plot from Letterboxd: AN ANCIENT LEGEND REBORN. A re-imagining of the old mystical folklore that follows a woman and a tight-knit Jewish community that is besieged by foreign invaders. She conjures a dangerous creature to protect them but it may be more evil than she ever imagined.

My Review: After the first 15 minutes: The movie opens with the story of the Golem, whereby a rabbi cannot control the monster and it ends up killing everyone. A young girl witnesses these events and runs from the temple. The movie then progresses into the future, to 1673 Lithuania where a couple (Hannah and Ben) is trying to conceive. It has been 7 years without any baby. They live in an isolated Jewish village, which is soon besieged by their Christian neighbors.

Overall impressions: This movie is full of themes of loss and regret — the couple I mentioned before lost their only son in a tragic accident. Hannah is severely depressed, and cannot imagine ever having a child again — she studies the Torah day and night to find a reason why God has taken their son from them. Que the Christian invaders, who blame the Jewish villagers for the plague. Their leader brings his dying daughter and threatens the villagers with death if she dies. The village healer takes the girl in an effort to heal here.

Amidst all this, Hannah awakens a Golem to save the town, but his awakening is a double edged sword which brings more than just salvation.

This movie is not scary, although a horror film. I read a lot of reviews of people who didn’t like this movie because the golem was a boy child instead of some gross, gigantic mud monster. For me though, the fact that the golem was a child, really tied into the loss of Hannah of her own child, and added to the movie.

I think that it is worth the watch.