Der Exorzismus der Tracy Crowell

Theology student Brandon Jensen (Chris Minor) is doing his class assignment on exorcism. He and his class partner Clay Harper (Jake Brinn) do some research. They sell passes to their possession attempt to generate internet funding. They recruit medical student Leda Morgan (Nicky Jasper) and hire a cultist to raise a demonic spirit.

This small budget indie may have an interesting idea, but this movie cannot escape its poor execution. First, the work group should be bigger than two people from the start. There is no reason to not have the girl right away. I like the crowd funding idea. They could make a bigger meal out of hiring a wacky dark magic witch. The reconnection with the father is a little abrupt. I like the idea, but the execution is wanting. A lot of this movie is flawed in that way.

It appears to me, that at this moment in time, writers and directors are struggling to portray a decent horror story. This is another of those films that should have been much better. Once again it's a nice idea - A theology student decides to do his thesis on Exorcism, though while investigating he has the idea of getting an entity to possess him and then carry out an exorcism online. You know things are going to go wrong, though the main thing that went wrong with this movie was the acting and the directing.

Though, for the opening sequence, which is a flashback with Bill Moseley as Father Mark Campbell trying to exorcise a demon from the body of a woman, it pretty good. I even settled down to enjoy the movie. Not long into the second scene where we're introduced to Brandon Jensen, it becomes evident that the atmosphere previously built up has disappeared. Worst still, it never comes back. It's as if there are two directors working on this film instead of just Scott B Hansen. All the flashback sequences are the best if they'd kept the same grimy dark atmosphere this would have been a better film.

Bill Moseley is, by far, the best thing about this film (shame he's not in it too long), and he outshines all of the other actors. The actors struggle to make their characters believable, even likable, most of the time the come across as flat and uninteresting.

The direction suffers from the hit-and-miss with creating and holding tension as well as managing action scenes credibly. Though I know Hansen can do it, as the flashbacks are evidence to. Not sure why the other sections of the film fail.

Not worth watching unless you're into exorcism and there's nothing on telly.

The opening sequence was actually surprisingly well done. You go in knowing this will be low budget. And after reading the ACTUAL budget they accomplished a lot with what they had. After the first scene the rest looks like it was shot on a cell phone and I couldn't tell if the voices were out of sync on purpose or just my TV. It was slow to the horror after the first scene but the few deaths towards the end were really good. A few things I am very confused/concerned about though: 1) he and his roommate have bunk beds? And his roommate has sex with a drunk girl on his bed? 2) he basically raped the med student but we never see that have repercussions. 3) Why was the house completely empty except the occult stuff and a piano? (Budget cuts I assume). I probably wouldn't RECOMMEND this movie to anyone but it wasn't a heap of trash.

Yet another film that wastes a creepy looking cover and quite intriguing concept. It is also another film that started promisingly but very, very quickly went downhill and never recovered, instead it progressively grew worse. This is coming from somebody who saw it in my "more like this" section when watching some other low-budget films, decided to ignore the rating and only skim through a few of the reviews, having been known to go against the grain.

Even when taking all of this into account, without any prejudice and giving it a proper chance, 'The Possession Experiment' was just very weakly done on most levels and on the most part it does not deliver. Am definitely going to have to agree with the low rating, don't always do with film and television having more than once in the past found ratings here too low, and the mediocre at best reviews (having read them properly just now) that sum up what's wrong with the film very well.

As said above, 'The Possession Experiment' did start off very well and the main reason for not scoring it lower as tempted to. It had genuine tension and creepiness and actually looked pretty good (the only scene really to be so).

The setting has moments of eeriness and the titles sequence was quite creatively done.

Can't say anything else good. The production values rapidly got worse in a jarring shift, with the lighting being far too dim and the photography being wildly disorganised in a particularly under-funded found footage sort of way, some erotic films actually look better. The editing is far too jumpy too with the constant setting shifts being choppy and sometimes confusing. The sound is too obvious and intrusive too often, pet hates of mine when it comes to audio, and the direction also shows signs of disorganisation and not thinking things through.

It doesn't feel like much of a script was written, as it constantly sounds awkward in flow and is woefully under (or should that be un)-rehearsed. The tension and horror is far too fleeting, with hardly anything scary after the opening, and when there is any signs of a story (barely there and it feels padded) it becomes more tedious, more predictable and sillier with each minute, with the sudden and choppy shifts making it harder to follow as well. Didn't find any of the characters interesting or appealing and the acting is horrendous enough to single-handedly wreck the film. The only halfway okay actor is Bill Moseley and he is wasted.

On the whole, good start but everything else is almost beyond redemption weak. 3/10

When "The Possession Experiment" opened i was greeted with a film which appeared to have some form of production value, this was a lie, as i think most of the budget must have been spent on that one scene, that single scene gave me hope, hope that was eventually possessed by the devil himself and subsequently destroyed, the actors were wooden and their characters were two dimensional, and i felt the "twist" was underwhelming, i also don't understand what happened with the editing and cinematography as at some points i was like "wow that was shot really well" then 80-90% was poorly edited and the lighting was just awful, i am now currently in mid seance as i type out this review, conducting an experiment to be possessed myself so i can forget about what i have just watched.