A fake cursed object on eBay inspired a real scary movie

It’s not uncommon to see horror films based on stories that were barely real. There’s the Conjuring movies, based on the mostly fabricated cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Amityville Horror” Emily Rose: The Exorcism. Few of these movies, however, have a background as complex or interesting as the demon supernatural movie. PossessionThe movie is about a box, which was supposedly haunted, by a spirit similar to a demon from Jewish mythology.

Clyde, a fictional character, is the protagonist of this horror film, directed by Sam Raimi. Clyde has recently been divorced. He is trying to establish a relationship with his two daughters. He buys a box for his youngest daughter at a garage sale to keep her happy during the time she is at his house. It’s in the middle nowhere. The box, we know from the movie’s prologue, is haunted in some way, with a spirit that speaks to its owner. In the end, we discover that the box contains a dybbuk which wants to possess this young girl. The movie then devolves in its third act into another exorcism film.

First, however, Possessing a PossibilityIt’s pretty good. It’s fast-paced and creepy, with hosts of massive insects that seem to spawn from the box, a few great sequences with an invasive hand that seems to belong to the demon, and some really tremendous-looking effects work. On top of that, it’s interesting to see the trappings of an exorcism movie removed from the specific iconography of the Catholic Church, even if the Jewish elements feel a little tacked-on rather than integral to the story. Even still, it’s a worthy addition to the possession genre. All of this is not the most interesting part of the film.

Lionsgate Image

What is the best thing about The Possession isn’t the movie itself, but the “real” events that inspired it.

Check out the box used in the movie ‘Dybbuk’ You can learn more about it here.It’s real. You’re right.

The movie’s box is based on one that was sold on eBay in 2003, along with a haunting story about the ills the box — or its demonic occupant — supposedly caused. It was cursed and passed from owner to owner until the box ended up in a Las Vegas museum, where it was said to have also cursed pop star Post Malone.

There’s just one problem. eBay posted an update stating that the box is a total and complete fake. In 2019, a post in The Skeptical Inquirer put forward a convincing case that the box’s story wasn’t real. Kevin Mannis explained to Input Magazine in an interview two years after the box was sold that it had been a complete fabrication. But he said everything that’s happened with the box is exactly what he hoped for.

“I am a creative writer,” Mannis said to Input. “The Dybbuk Box is a story that I created. The Dybbuk Box has achieved exactly what I hoped it would when I first posted it twenty years ago. […] Which is to become an interactive horror story in real-time.”

This opens up an interesting thought experiment regarding the box. Was the real dybbuk, which haunted this box and was the inspiration for the film? Definitely not. Is the box cursed or not? Absolutely.

The idea of a curse can be viewed in very limited terms. The Britannica dictionary says a curse is “magical words that are said to cause trouble or bad luck for someone or the condition that results when such words are said.”

I’m a baseball fan, and a horror fanatic who was raised online. But my inner baseball enthusiast (and horror-freak) wants to let you know that curses may be much more than just a joke. It is important to remember that believing something false can sometimes make it true.

Lionsgate Image

In the world of internet creepypasta, there is a tragic and horrific example. Slender Man is an internet sensation that began in 2009. It was a fictional tale of a supernatural being with long limbs who wears suit, and demands that children go into the woods and murder their friends. In 2014, however, two teenage girls tried to kill another girl in the name of Slender Man. Slender Man became real in the worst possible way: he was no longer a long-limbed, physical creature but a force that inspired real-life tragedies.

On the lighter side, follow baseball and its players long enough and you’re sure to hear about curses and superstitions. Sometimes they’re team-wide, like the Red Sox Curse of the Bambino or the Cubs’ near-century-long curse by goat. Other times they’re more individual, like a star player suddenly unable to perform basic baseball duties. Those aren’t necessarily supernatural forces preventing players from making easy throws or hitting pitches, but if you tell yourself you can’t hit without doing something for long enough, it might eventually end up being true. It’s a curse, one way or the other. And by fabricating a story about the box’s past, Mannis cursed it in a different way.

This fake cursed object was bought on eBay and passed around by people. It eventually led to an actual cure. The PossessionThe dybbuk may or may not be inside but this satchel is really cursed. If everyone who gets it chalks their bad luck up to it, and things get better when it’s gone, it’s a curse — whether there’s a demon inside it or not.

Sadly, The Possession isn’t really about any of that. It’s still pretty good: a well-made and unique exorcism movie that never lets itself get bogged down in too much exposition or explanation. Even still, the movie isn’t half as interesting as the story behind it. Maybe one day it will get a remake that lives up to its “based on a true story” title card even more, and the fake box from eBay can latch its curse onto the real world for a little bit longer.