The Possession of Michael King

The Possession of Michael King is an entertaining, thrilling, and well thought out horror film. I was hesitant to watch at first, expecting another generic possession movie, but the premise is original and catches your interest off the bat. Instead of the typical wrong place wrong time possession this is a case of curiosity killing the cat. There are a few scattered jump scares but seeing Michael's descent is what sticks with you after the credits have rolled. Overall this was well shot and acted, my only real complaint is that they could have taken their time and dug more into the religious exploration scenes in the first act.

A halfway decent plot is the only thing that really ties this movie together. The acting is actually pretty good, and there are even some very interesting characters that you can tell are having good fun with their parts. It's a simple plot, but grows on itself in an organic sort of way, consistently adding cohesive elements that work with the original idea. It's good writing.

Then there are two very real negatives to address. This is supposed to be a found footage feature, but when the camera hops too and fro and flips scenes so that you can see better, it really just destroys the illusion horribly. There are even instances where the camera appears to defy the action in the scene, such as remaining perfectly still while a crash has apparently happened. This sort of thing asks you to "turn off your brain" while you watch it. But honestly no one can really do that. There's always a little voice that says, "Hey, the camera can't do that! Oh yeah, this is a movie." It serves to impolitely yank you out of the immersion.

Make up your minds people. Is it, or is it not a found footage film? If it's not, then stop pretending that it's supposed to be.

Ultimately, the real problem is that this movie ends up being a simple jump scare feature. It's like having someone periodically popping a balloon in your ear while you are reading a scary book. Your adrenaline rushes, your heart pounds, your ears ring, and you exhibit all of the symptoms of "being afraid" without actually having a reason to be afraid. It's a cheap trick, and honestly it's very disappointing.

What's worse is that the "scare" volume is so incredibly high compared to the rest of the film that it's almost downright rude. After the first few times, I felt compelled to turn it off, but stuck it out instead only to have it periodically blast me throughout the rest of the feature. It's downright irritating.

All in all though, a pretty fun movie. I'm giving it a 7.

I was highly skeptical (but also bored) and so I decided to give this film a try and I'm glad I did. After seeing the low score I was expecting something boring, with cheap scares and bad visual effects. But quite the contrary, the main character acting is believable, visual effects though scarce are well made and add to the scariness of some scenes, and it's overall a refreshing horror flick that makes good use (but doesn't abuse) of the "found footage" format that is so popular in horror movies these days.

The only thing that I found annoying it the LOUDNESS of some scary parts. I was watching this movie with headphones on and at a moderate volume and after the first official scare I was nearly deaf. I think they went a little bit overboard with the sound contrast, so be warned..

7.5/10

Watch this one. Just another possession flick right? Nope. Hard to synopsize too much without revealing plot points, but just know that this is a "found footage" flick in the best way. No shaky hand-held stuff. The film follows a film maker that uses multiple cameras. So that gives us different angles and legitimate cinematic quality that sets this miles ahead of your average POV flick. In fact, its very rare that there are 1st person POV shots. Excellent writing. Excellent production, Excellent acting.

I gotta say - Im tired of found footage and possession stories, but I'll be damned if this doesn't prove there is still room for both if done correctly.

I cant wait to see where David Jung goes from here.

It is a fresh new air for this kind of movie, and im not a fan of found footage movies, i love horror movies, and this is exactly what you want to watch with some friends on a night indoors. Im more for thrillers, but this movie was entertained, fast, always something was happening, i would stay with the feeling of the extasis experience, or make every experience a bit more important. Characters a bit more developed, but again, this work perfectly OK for this movie. i didn't knew this was the first movie that Jung directed and that's amazing, looks really professional, nothing to envy to top chart horror movies! I gave it a 6 cause it filled my expectations )i was hopping for more than a month to watch this) still think that could go a bit more serious and scary. Congrats anyway to the Director, big future!