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POSSESSION
— 1981 —
I knew very little about this film going in, and that is almost always a great thing. When you can simply sit down and immerse yourself into something that has nothing but your interest, and you are without any form knowledge, experience or anything of that matter. I had barely read the plot synopsis, so I was actually pretty excited. Unfortunately it didn't turn out at all like my kind of movie...
So, basically we are just thrown into the midst of things without much knowledge of who the characters are and what is going to happen, and I liked that. The way it was set up and the way the first half hour of the movie moved forward, almost felt like Rosemary's Baby, which of course was a great plus! I love horror movies that are not necessarily full-blown genre flicks, but instead seamlessly cross between other genres. Especially drama works great, as you are sometimes left in the dark to what is happening, which is also what this movie used, and I liked that. But as the film progressed, it just became worse and worse to me. It went from feeling mostly professionally made and well acted, to some extremely weird and campy indie feature or something. What the hell was that about?
The story gets quite messy and incoherent, and you are never really told much about anything. And it doesn't help much either, when it all just gets weirder and more f*cked up as time goes by. My most hated aspect was when the characters in the film was "possessed" or looked like being possessed. Waving their hands around the air and acting like they tried to get accepted into the amateur play in middle school. Especially when the female lead was in the tunnels of the subway station, and out of nowhere, began to do this impression of a crack head doing heavy-metal head banging to the sound of absolute silence. That is, forgetting about the annoying screams she continues to do throughout the scene. That scene just went on forever, and suddenly I just broke out into laughter and couldn't believe what was happening. The character was just rolling around the floor and tossing herself around and up the walls while screaming and shouting like a mad person! I mean, what am I supposed to feel here, exactly?
And from there on, it even gets weirder than that; tons of unexplained things happening, people bleeding, people dying, people screaming, people getting eaten, and people having sex with inhuman creatures. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to think of all this? I feel like my eyes began to hurt from all this, and my brain got badly insulted and began to melt out of my ear, in about two hours or more. And what is even worse is that it looked to be such a great film in the beginning. The visuals were nice and natural, the soundtrack was not that present but very experimental and haunting when it was there, and the acting seemed great and I really love Sam Neill as well. But sorry, this just wasn't for me at all. It was missing consistency, focus, and control. It was just an ugly mess in my opinion… unfortunately.
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POSSESSION
— 1981 —
I knew very little about this film going in, and that is almost always a great thing. When you can simply sit down and immerse yourself into something that has nothing but your interest, and you are without any form knowledge, experience or anything of that matter. I had barely read the plot synopsis, so I was actually pretty excited. Unfortunately it didn't turn out at all like my kind of movie...
So, basically we are just thrown into the midst of things without much knowledge of who the characters are and what is going to happen, and I liked that. The way it was set up and the way the first half hour of the movie moved forward, almost felt like Rosemary's Baby, which of course was a great plus! I love horror movies that are not necessarily full-blown genre flicks, but instead seamlessly cross between other genres. Especially drama works great, as you are sometimes left in the dark to what is happening, which is also what this movie used, and I liked that. But as the film progressed, it just became worse and worse to me. It went from feeling mostly professionally made and well acted, to some extremely weird and campy indie feature or something. What the hell was that about?
The story gets quite messy and incoherent, and you are never really told much about anything. And it doesn't help much either, when it all just gets weirder and more f*cked up as time goes by. My most hated aspect was when the characters in the film was "possessed" or looked like being possessed. Waving their hands around the air and acting like they tried to get accepted into the amateur play in middle school. Especially when the female lead was in the tunnels of the subway station, and out of nowhere, began to do this impression of a crack head doing heavy-metal head banging to the sound of absolute silence. That is, forgetting about the annoying screams she continues to do throughout the scene. That scene just went on forever, and suddenly I just broke out into laughter and couldn't believe what was happening. The character was just rolling around the floor and tossing herself around and up the walls while screaming and shouting like a mad person! I mean, what am I supposed to feel here, exactly?
And from there on, it even gets weirder than that; tons of unexplained things happening, people bleeding, people dying, people screaming, people getting eaten, and people having sex with inhuman creatures. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to think of all this? I feel like my eyes began to hurt from all this, and my brain got badly insulted and began to melt out of my ear, in about two hours or more. And what is even worse is that it looked to be such a great film in the beginning. The visuals were nice and natural, the soundtrack was not that present but very experimental and haunting when it was there, and the acting seemed great and I really love Sam Neill as well. But sorry, this just wasn't for me at all. It was missing consistency, focus, and control. It was just an ugly mess in my opinion… unfortunately.
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