The Possessed

I normally love these supernatural films, but this one doesn't work. Its photographed well, and most of the cast is OK, not great but an Aussie possession film mainly shot during the day is actually quite odd and NOT scary at all.

John Jarret is a legend, but he doesn't suit this character at all, even if it's based on a real guy. The waving the hands around a person is so comical and cringeworthy. Sometimes it's better as a film-maker to make changes for the audience especially cringe-factors.

The best actress in the film is Lauren Grimson, a talented and attractive actress. Lincoln Lewis is also good, but everyone else seem like they were just dropped into the film because they knew the director.

The story is weak and not believable, some of the VFX or SPFX is good, but then some are really bad. Its a bad mix. The creature designs on some demons are EPIC, I'll give it that.

There's a scene in the film, when they just had the lights turning on and off constantly - leaving no suspense at all and desensitising the audience. Thats not scary when you do it 100 times, think of JAWS and how many times you see the shark.

Not much else to say apart from, terrible soundtrack, terrible film, terrible story, the lighting in the houses is atrocious, it's not professional lighting and the color grading is not ascetically good to look at, it looks cheap and rushed, not cinematic at all. And I don't know how this director keeps making these B or D grade films.

The writing and acting are pretty bad in this film. The main character overacts constantly, and the poor acts must have a broken wrist from all the silly hand waving he had to do. The story does not have a real arc, but is jut a series of events with no clear silver thread through them all. The characters do not really develop at all, and the settings are boring.

All that being said, the effects are really good, like, almost Holly-wood quality good! The demons look fantastic and truly frightening. The possession effects, including sound, are great, too.

That's why I call this movie weird and contradictory: terrible acting and writing, but great effects. Weird.

Jacob Chandler became an exorcist after a tragedy in 2001. He has exorcised many possessed by demons in what he calls clearing. His nephew Liam, Liam's girlfriend Atalie Carlisle who has the curse of seeing the demons, and their group of young friends join him in a difficult clearing.

This is a different exorcist. It's still an exorcist and it has many of the same ideas. Supposedly, it's a real guy from the opening text and closing credits although I can't take him that seriously. First, there's the shaky hand which looks like a gimmick. Second, the Australian accent doesn't fit my mind's image of an exorcist. Finally, there is the Hawaiian shirt. I can almost hear him sing Kokomo. It's a funny visual. At least, he does change into a black T-shirt which is a minor improvement. The best option is to play into the silly image like a Crocodile Dundee. It may turn it into a farce, but it would be interesting. While I'm uncertain about the guy, I do like the demon designs. This is a smaller indie horror with all the standard horror tropes. The story is very simplistic and straight-forward. This very much depends on how one sees Jacob.

Not everything was bad about The Possessed, like some of the actual demonic possessions (good acting here from some), and the different demons (some looked good for the low budget this movie must have). But then you get the acting. That wasn't a good thing in this movie. Jade Kevin Foster was the only one that was watchable. John Jarratt on the other hand was really bad. The shaky hand thing whilst he does his clearing looks ridiculous but then again in the end credits they show actual footage from the real person and he did the exact same thing, even worse, so I guess John Jarratt nailed that part. But for the rest he clearly needs to keep his day job. Lincoln Lewis was also annoying to watch. In fact the whole movie feels like one of those cheap Australian soaps like Neighbours or Home and Away, but in this case it's not a soap but a movie. The same garnage but luckily for us this one ends after a couple of hours.

As I sat down here late in 2022 to watch the 2021 horror movie "The Possessed", I did so without ever having heard about this movie from director Chris Sun. I will say that the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough, and a horror movie with possessions that I hadn't already seen was sufficient to make me want to sit down and watch it.

Writers Kirsty Dallas, Mark Gardener, John Kendrick and Chris Sun put together an entertaining enough script and plot for the movie. Sure, it was somewhat generic and predictable, but it made for an adequate enough horror movie. "The Possessed" is not going to become a classic within this particular subgenre of horror movies, but it made for an okay enough viewing experience, though I doubt I will ever return to watch it a second time.

The acting performances in "The Possessed" were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble, but the actors and actresses put on fair enough performances to carry the movie.

Something that did impress me in "The Possessed" was the special effects. I liked the CGI effects and the designs of the various demonic entities was quite impressive. I was actually really surprised with the level of quality here in the CGI and special effects department for a movie such as this. And it definitely helped to lift up the movie quite a notch.

I am rating "The Possessed" a five out of ten stars.