Interview: Film Director Keith Thomas on The Vigil
Religious horror film The Vigil opens in New Zealand tomorrow (July 16). The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda just spoke to director Keith Thomas.
This is Keith Thomas’ debut feature film. It won accolades at last year’s Toronto film festival, but its general release has been postponed thanks to the pandemic…until now.
Here’s a press blurb that describes the film:
Set over the course of a single evening in Brooklyn’s Hassidic “Boro” Park neighborhood, THE VIGIL follows Yakov, a former Hassid, as he accepts a position as a shomer, hired to “sit the vigil” and watch over the body of a deceased community member. Having lost his faith, Yakov isn’t eager to go back to the insular religious community he only recently fled. But when Reb Shulem, a rabbi and confidante, approaches Yakov after a support group meeting and offers to pay Yakov to be the shomer for a recently deceased Holocaust survivor, he reluctantly accepts the job. Shortly after arriving at the dilapidated house, Yakov realizes that something is very, very wrong. This will not be a quiet vigil.
Steeped in ancient Jewish lore, THE VIGIL is a visceral and terrifying supernatural horror film set in a world audiences have never before experienced.
