We aren’t quite sure Matisyahu would have been cast in this role sans payos and beard nowadays, but they got him at a good time and he is looking fresh in this trailer! Horror movies are all about planting unexpected things in unexpected places to scare the hell out of you. The trailer for the new horror film The Possession, in theatres August 31 (watch the trailer) does just that. There’s Hebrew writing on a mysterious old box that, while nobody’s looking, sets free a demon.
The demon is actually a dybbuk, which in Jewish folklore is a spirit of someone dead that possesses the body of a living person. In this case, it creeps straight into the body of nine-year-old Em. The depiction of the monster in the trailer, with a swarm of insects and a tiny hand trying to climb its way out of the girl’s throat, will catch you off guard–even now that we’ve told you what to expect. And the sight of a familiar face playing the Hasidic rabbi at 1:29 gives another unexpected surprise. It might not make your head turn around, but it’s still pretty exciting.
Shemspeed is an independent recording label and promotional agency highlighting cross-over music artists with positive and unifying messages. Founded by Erez Safar, an American-Israeli DJ/Producer, Shemspeed promotes over 15 dynamic artists representing a wide range of genres including hip-hop, reggae, and rock. These artists include Y-Love (revolutionary Jewish hip-hop), Diwon (Yemenite / Sephardic hip-hop, Israeli music and more), DeScribe (soul-awakening dancehall, hip-hop, & soul), and Electro Morocco (Israeli rock, dance music.) Shemspeed artists, collectively showcasing the diversity in world Jewish music, have performed with musicians as varied as Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Idan Raichel and Eminem; they’ve been profiled in Rolling Stone, SPIN, The New York Times and XXL; and they’ve been seen and heard around the world on various TV appearances (Conan O’Brien, CBS and BBC World) and global radio. Shemspeed’s mission is unifying people through culture and education, celebrating diversity and common ground. By way of this work, we add a public Jewish voice to multi-cultural, inter-faith, creative and collaborative bridge-building.
