Initial Reaction & Review The Unbinding (2023)

I just got done watching The Unbinding and as my initial reaction I am giving it a 5/5. For what it is and what they appeared to have wanted it to be, they hit the mark.

I had not seen anything about this movie except for a single post on X, which was probably an ad. It looked interesting, and the release date was today 9/8. So, I was going to see it in the local cinema, only to find after closer inspection that today was the release date for streaming. That being said it is available for rent and purchase on Amazon (at a great price).

Non-Spoiler

It is wholly a documentary surrounding the introduction and subsequent activity of “the Crone” which is the idol depicted in the movie poster. This black wooden statue apparently was found by some hikers in the mountains of New York, taken, and began to terrorize the thief with knocks and physical manifestations.

All of the dialog was from interviews, except for a small section during a previous livestream where things got hairy with seemingly direct communication by two different entities. There was also footage from the end ritual. The rest seemed to be recreations of events. It is kind of funny that they mentioned the Michigan Paracon, which is an event I list on my calendar, and one I am going to attempt to make it to next year. Overall the editing and photography were done well.

The main people in the movie are Dana and Greg Newkirk who operate the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and Occult which you can support with a membership. The movie was done by Planet Weird who, with the same people, produced Hellier (2019) a TV mini series which is free with Amazon Prime. It was already on my list to watch and now it is at the top of the list.

***WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD***

So, what happens in this movie? After the hiker found the object he experienced enough activity that he could not sleep in his own house. Someone posted on the paranormal subreddit asking what to do and eventually the Newkirks got brought into it. Unsure of how to proceed, the idol was mailed to the museum. When the activity started to manifest with the Newkirks, they began their investigation. The activity included physical manifestations and materialization of footprints with dirt, wet footprints were no water had been, moisture with no apparent source, and movement. The initial repots from the hiker were that the idol would appear in different rooms as well as it apparently having been thrown and impacted the wall hard enough to crack the sheetrock. Movement reported by the Newkirks stated it moved from a coffee table to under a TV stand and as Greg went to retrieve it Dana caught the TV from falling on him as though it had been pushed by an unseen force. Additionally, the idol had supposedly ripped the figure of Jesus from a crucifix with enough force it broke an arm off, but left the crucifix hanging by one nail. This along with banging noises, and a shadowy apparition of a wet crone would make a believer out of most.

Attempts to study the idol found high EMF and high strangeness from an attempted 3D scan which seemed to manipulate itself. What appeared to be fingers reached out of the idol when the artist removed the head in the 3D software. Note that this was on his computer after the fact and well after the object had been scanned and removed from his presence.

The communication was captured on a Halloween livestream (although I could not find a recording on the Planet Weird YouTube channel). They used the Estes method whereby the one person would wear headphones hooked to a spirit box while blindfolded. This eliminated any interaction from the questioners leaving the first person to act as a mouthpiece repeating whatever came over the spirit box. The communication seemed direct and intelligent.

The team finally shed a little light on the subject when they spoke with a specialist on Russian and Slovak folklore. They found this lead due to the fact that there was a population of Ukrainians in the area where the idol was found. The nails in its eyes and line used to make the noose where traced back to possibly the local Walmart.

In the end, they performed an unbinding ritual and released whatever was in the idol which was concluded to be possibly an embodiment of the Slovak deity Mokosh (left and center) or a Kikimora (right) a companion of Mokosh “who can be identified by her wet foot prints” 1:27:48.

They said one mystery remains, and that is who is Brother Biddum? However, this is where I would have done a deeper investigation if possible to reach out to the communities and try to track down possibly who did what to this idol or perhaps who is missing a Mokosh idol? But that could be bottomless rabbit hole.

At the very least it begs the question of how was the entity able to manipulate the 3D scan while not present as though the scan file itself was possessed? Also, what or who was bound in/to the idol? This incident has peaked my interest and I may have to do a deep dive.

Let me know what you think in the comments below if you have seen it and what your thought about the movie. Until next time, keep searching in the darkness.