Welcome Back Everyone.
Today I will recap a 2019 American supernatural horror film named The Vigil.
Before we start, it is a request to please like and comment on the video as it will help
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At the beginning of the movie, we are told that for thousands of years a custom has been
going on in Judaism which is called Vigil.
When a member of the Jewish family dies, a guard, who is called Shomar, guards the corpse
until the funeral takes place.
He recites the religious mantra to save the deceased from the invisible evil forces and
till he gets peace.
This guard is often a family member or a close friend, but when there is no close relative
to Vigil, there are shomars who do this work for money.
The film opens with an unidentified boy forced by a man in a black Nazi uniform to shoot
a young woman in a forest, as a strange figure approaches them in the background.
The film then cuts to Yakov Ronen, who takes some medicine standing in the washroom because
he is struggling to deal with an unspecified traumatic event in his past.
Then he comes out where we see some people who are having a meeting.
These people are struggling to settle in the modern secular world by leaving their Orthodox
Jewish community.
They have made a self-help organization of their own.
Then Lane, the leader of that group, asks Ronen about his job interview, on which he
tells that he did not get that job.
Lane asks him how will he pay the rent now? which Ronen is worried about, but everyone
comforts him.
Then we see that Ronen is shy to talk to a group member named Sarah.
He also gets a little nervous seeing his cousin Reb Shulem, standing outside the window.
Then Sarah saves her number on his phone and leaves asking to meet him tomorrow.
After this, when Lane learns of Shulem's arrival, he goes downstairs and warns him not to harass
his group members.
Shulem tells him that he just has to talk to Ronen and then Lane leaves from there.
Shulem offers Ronen a job as a shomar.
He refuses it saying that he has left the community, but when Shulem tells him that
his hired shomar has run away and he has experience in this work, so he needs him and offers him
200 dollars.
Now because Ronen needed money, he agrees to do this work for 500 dollars.
When asked by Ronen, Shulem tells him that his community member Rubin Litvak, who was
the only Holocaust survivor of his family, has died.
After coming here, he married again but his children are not here and his wife has Alzheimer's
due to which she cannot do this work.
Shulem also tells him that the shomar whom he had arranged ran away in fear and he would
have to do vigil for 5 hours.
Then they go to Mr. Litvak's house where Mrs. Litvak on seeing Ronen says that this shomar
is not right so he has to leave from here.
But when Mrs. Litvak goes upstairs to sleep, Salem leaves Ronen there.
The body is kept there in the lounge itself and Ronen sits there and starts listening
to the songs on his phone.
After some time, he starts hearing banging noises from the floor above, so he stops listening
to songs and starts reading prayers.
He sees that there is some movement in the corpse but he feels that this is his illusion.
Just then he hears something from behind and sees a shadowy figure in the house's dining
room standing in which he thinks is Mrs. Litvak, but when he turns on the flash of his phone
there is no one there.
Then he finds a photo of Litvak and his family with a similar shadowy figure behind them.
Then after a while, Ronen falls asleep and has a dream in which he is walking on the
road at night with his younger brother.
On the way, they encounter some people who push him and start harassing his brother.
Suddenly he wakes up from sleep and he gets a message but when he takes out his phone,
his hand is hurting.
This is Sarah's message and then he starts chatting with her.
During this, he starts hearing some voices from above but he ignores them.
Then a lamp starts flickering, after which all the lights of the house start flickering.
Now Ronen gets very frustrated with this and goes to check the lamp.
But the bulb explodes and the house becomes dark.
He then receives a video on his phone by an unknown number.
The video shows Mrs. Litvak approaching him and touching his face while he is asleep;
the video file vanishes from his phone a few seconds later.
Now before he can understand anything, he hears a sound and he sees a leg that breaks
the nail of his thumb, and as soon as Ronen turns on the light, those feet go ahead and
disappear.
Ronen now panics and calls his doctor but the call goes to voicemail.
He tells him that he is seeing and hearing things and asks him to call back.
After this, when he goes to drink water, he again hears sounds from above and sees that
instead of water in the glass, there is some black liquid and then a bunch of hair comes
out of his mouth which starts sliding on the ground.
He is still watching it when Mrs. Litvak comes there and says that they are not nightmares.
They are memories but not his.
She asks him why he has come here to which he tells that he is a shomar and he has come
here to protect her husband.
Mrs. Litvak tells him that she drove them away and they thought it was their choice.
This place is not for children.
It was a bunker in the wilderness, a place that you go to, but never return from.
Then she says that her husband was broken by memories, the kind of memories he just
saw.
Then she picks up a piece of glass and clenches it in her fist due to which she starts bleeding.
and then she leaves from there.
Ronen hears someone's voice and when he follows that voice to the basement, he sees that there
is a video recording of Litvak and his wife playing on TV.
In the recording, Litvak explains that he was haunted by a Mazzik, a malevolent spirit,
since his time in Buchenwald, that it latches onto a "broken person" and that its true face
must be burned by dawn on the first night of its appearance to banish it.
But if that person is not able to do this, then that demon will hunt someone else after
his death.
Then he notices that Mrs. Latvik is trying to say something in the video and when he
goes near to listen to her, she says that he is behind him.
Now hearing this, Ronen gets very scared and when he looks back, The Mazzik appears behind
him.
Ronen flees from the basement and during this, his leg gets injured.
Ronen then gets a call apparently from his physician Dr. Kohlberg.
He tells him he is seeing and hearing things On which the doctor asks who is he seeing?
Ronen says he doesn't know but the man who was living here and his wife were obsessed
with demons, something called Mazzik.
The doctor asks him did he see the demon in him too?
To which he tells that he had seen the shadow.
The doctor explains to him that it is because of the accident that happened to his brother
that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress and fear.
The doctor asks him to close his eyes and think about that shadow and describe him.
Ronen is unable to describe anything and the doctor asks if his head was turned back.
Then he sees some movement in the corpse and he goes to the corpse, only then does he get
another call and it is Dr. Kohlberg, who tells him he just got his message and apologizes
for getting late to call him back.
On hearing this, Ronen gets very scared, and when he switches to the first call, his dead
brother, asks him "Why did he let him die?"
Just then he sees Mrs. Litvak going up the stairs and suddenly from behind Mrs. Litvak
asks him for tea.
She tells him that he will not let him go from here.
Ronen asks her who will not let him go?
To which she says that mazzik is playing with him.
it wants his pain and will make him see terrible things.
Then she says that even if he runs away, mazzik will make him crawl right back.
Ronen asks her to leave from there but when she does not agree, he says that he is calling
Shulem and then they will come back to get her.
Then he comes out of the house but on the way his hand starts hurting very badly.
After this, the bone of his leg also gets cracked and he starts trying to crawl forward
But he can't even move and then is confronted by the Mazzik.
Ronen hastily returns to the house and falls down the steps after being startled by the
Mazzik appearing in front of the door.
A flashback then reveals that Ronen's brother was killed in a car accident after escaping
from the men who were tormenting him, and Ronen has felt guilty about his death ever
since.
Then when he regains consciousness, he is inside the house and starts crying for not
being able to save his brother's life.
Then he sees that Mr. Latvik's body is missing from there.
He then talks to Sarah on FaceTime and tells her that there is something evil in this house.
It was following Mr litvak and then it was feeding off of him.
He thinks it wants him now and it won't let him leave.
Sarah tells him that he needs to go upstairs And now there is no use fighting him.
Ronen is shocked to hear this and then she says that he just saw her brother dying and
did not help him and suddenly Mazzik takes her away.
Then he sees that Mr. Litvak's body comes back there and gets up.
He asks him in his brother's voice why he let him die.
Ronen goes to him and says that he was very scared and he starts apologizing to him.
But then he sees that there is only a shroud in his hand.
He then goes to Mrs. Litvak who gives him some items and says that they will help him.
Then she tells that in 1919 Her Grandfather Saw his parents murdered in kiev.
Neighbors smuggled him out He davened with tallis and tefillin every
day.
Ronen ties the tefillin to his arm which is a set of small black leather boxes with leather
straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah.
He then takes a candle and goes back where he confronts the Mazzik, And like him, he
is also holding a candle in his hand.
Then he turns his head and shapeshifts its true face to look like Ronen's.
Ronen gets scared seeing this and after initially hesitating, sets its true face on fire, and
then banishes it when it begins to make Litvak's body contort loudly.
After this he sees that Latvik's corpse is moving inside the shroud and he sits near
him and starts reading prayers.
A flashback reveals that Litvak was the boy forced to shoot the young woman in the opening
scene; The pain Litvak felt after the shooting caused the Mazzik to latch on to him.
After this, he sees that Latvik's corpse is shaking inside the shroud and he sits near
him and starts reading prayers.
A flashback reveals that Litvak was the boy forced to shoot the young woman in the opening
scene; The pain Litvak felt after the shooting caused the Mazzik to latch on to him.
Ronen asks Mazzik to leave Litvak's body while reading prayers, and finally, after some time
Mazzik leaves him.
On the next morning, the mortuary men arrive to collect Litvak's body, And we see that
Ronan does not take his medicine, which means his trauma and fear were also over.
Shulem asks Ronen to attend morning prayers with him; Ronen declines his offer, saying
"not today".
As he leaves the house, a dark figure (presumably the Mazzik) is seen following him out of the
house and heading down the street behind him.
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