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Jewish horror certainly isn’t new. ‘The Dybbuk,’ a play by S. Ansky about the Jewish folkloric demon, was first performed in 1920. Since, there have been many stories of the mythological nightmare, from stage to screen and otherwise. The dybbuk is named for the word “to cleave” or “to cling,” referencing the demon’s way of latching onto a living body. It’s a soul of a dead person that takes up a living host, possessing them until it is able to accomplish its goal.

Unlike Christian demons we’re used to seeing in films, dybbuks aren’t cohorts of the devil, but souls of the dead who are unable or unwilling to move on due to unfinished business. Movies like The Unborn (2009), The Possession (2012), and Ezra (2017) used the dybbuk, but each fell into a common trap. We won’t spend time tackling the 2003 created “dybbuk box,” but suffice it...

Exclusive: HBO Max has struck a deal for world rights to Valley Of Tears, Israel’s biggest-budget TV series ever made, in a major deal for London-based sales and production org WestEnd Films.

The show marks WestEnd’s first foray into TV, through its banner WeSeries. It is producing and co-financing the project, which debuted in official competition at Series Mania earlier this year.

Valley Of Tears was created and co-written by Israeli-American TV and film writer Ron Leshem (HBO’s Euphoria), Amit Cohen (False Flag), Daniel Amsel and Yaron Zilberman (A Late Quartet); the latter also directed the entire series.

The series will be branded a HBO Max original when it launches on an as-yet unspecified date. Inspired by true events, the ten-part show depicts the 1973 Yom Kippur War through the eyes of young combatants. It tells four emotional and highly personal stories of individuals swept away from their...