Possession

This is one of the better of the cheezy and cheaper films I've seen so far under the likes of "Slumber Party Massacure", "Friday 13th" and "April Fools" day. It tries to take the same plot as "Phyco" but falls flat with the end of Frankies mother which could have been more usefull in the movie if her character would have continued on. Frankie plays a strange guy that is looking for love in all the wrong places like underground parking lots, male dance parties and apartment houses. He keeps finding the wrong girl, or what he thinks is the wrong girl and when his contience tells him this, he kills the girl. He then stalks a girl who got away and finds her at a party and begins stalking her there along with the rest of the group which gives him plenty of victims. Frankie is hillarious with his Gomer Pyle laugh, mad war makeup and intence facial expressions. He even kills me with the things he says "What are you doing? Mother would get mad if she saw you doing that, don't you ever do that again!" It's one of those movies that I like to watch just to get a good laugh and in my opinion the killings are even worth watching than most cheezy horror films.

A poor excuse of a horror movie, made worse by the idiotic, annoying killer, who seems to have some sort of brain damage and goes around murdering young girls for no reason. This guy lives with his mother who controls his life (sound familiar), and won't let him date girls, because they'll take him away from her, she proclaims! Years of this kind of "mothering" has turned him into a pathetic, whiny-voiced madman, who crawls around parking lots in his huge Buick looking for new female victims, to lure back home, rape and kill.

The movie starts off with some blonde nurse being abducted by our killer, and taken back to his house. They seem to know each other (from where?), and while mother is yelling at him the nurse makes her escape. Humiliated, the killer strangles his mother and sets about seeking vengeance on the nurse, who lives with a bunch of scantily-clad female friends. They decide to enact their own revenge on the killer, and funnily enough, run into home quite quickly in the middle of a suburban street! Determination now gone, they flee and manage to call the police while he chases them in his Buick. After being cornered, the killer stabs a cop and speeds off with two units in pursuit, all three cars driving very slowly so as not to crash, because with the lousy budget this film has they wouldn't have been able to pay for any damage! Eventually, they reach the waterfront and the killer jumps into a rowboat to sail away. The cops run up to a pier and open fire with shotguns, eventually causing the WOODEN rowboat to EXPLODE! That's right - the killer is rowing away with oars in a wooden boat and when shot at with guns it blows up into a plume of fire! I laughed so hard at that scene, especially when the cops lower their guns, stare at the fiery wreck and then just walk off, without even attempting to recover a body! Can you believe this shoddy writing? Anyway, with the killer presumed dead, a few months later the nurse and her friends decide to take off to some wilderness cabin for a week. A couple of girls stay behind. But low-and-behold, the killer is still alive, sitting in his old house (what about the bills?) and complaining in his whiny-voice to his mother's headstone (which he put in himself). He decides again to get the nurse and her friends and goes to their house, only to find the two stragglers and their boyfriends, whom he kills. Then he conveniently discovers where the girls are staying via an answering machine message, and takes off to the cabin. There he kills just about everyone else in standard format until only two girls are left. What a good plot! Bah. Apart from the terrible writing which pits characters into the most ridiculous of situations (one girl goes out to photograph trees, for God's sake), the killer will really get on your nerves with his teeth-setting laugh and expressions that are not frightening to the extreme. He also has a habit of sneaking up behind his male victims to kill them so they don't have the chance to defend themselves, because it is clearly obvious they are all much stronger than he is and would easily win in a fair fight! I could only shake my head at such stupidity when we're supposed to be "afraid" of this killer, who dispatches of his victims with red-hot fire pokers, lumps of wood and the hood of a Mustang.

Gore-wise the film barely rates in that department. There is minimal blood in most of the kills except for one where a girl is offed in the shower, which is also a frequent moment of nudity, although that is all very lame in itself. These girls are nothing special. The acting is also ridiculous, the worst being the killer, and the fact that he keeps regaining consciousness after some of the things that are done to him by the survivors defies belief. Watch out for the twist ending! Ha! I'm sure you can guess what it is... I don't even remember which two girls survived (I think one was the nurse), and all they do is hobble off into the woods, not even bothering to check if the killer is dead. The killer also has the habit of being in two places at once or getting between places in rapid time, and there is no sense of continuity or style in this film at all. A very average horror that has its moments, but there aren't really enough of them to give it a decent rating. The only laugh comes from that boat explosion, which is a must-see!

My review was written in December 1987 after watching the movie on Cinema Group video cassette.

"Possession" is a scatter-brained horror film made in Vancouver, which debuted domestically on video cassette. It's the latest from Lloyd A. Simandl, who has progressed little since collaborating on the late Dorothy R. Stratten's feature "Autumn Born" in 1979.

Two separate storylines meld unconvincingly, as nutcase Frankie (John R. Johnston) fails to cure his mother fixation by choking the old lady when she opposes his capturing (a la "The Collector") pretty Madeline (Melissa Martin) and bringing her home. A chase by Madeline's girlfriends and shootout with the police leaves Frankie seemingly torched in a boat explosion.

He comes back, however (it's not clear whether it's supposed to be supernatural), paints his face camouflage-black and heads for the woods to terrorize Madeline and her four girlfriends who have gone camping.

Lots of filler involves the girls' two boyfriends, a visit to a male strip joint and requisite exploitation footage of each girl taking a shower None of it makes any sense, right down to the cornball open ending.

First of all, the title makes no sense. There's no evil spirits in this movie, so "Possession" is misleading. The relationship between the killer and his mother was obviously ripped off from "Psycho" (what's with the Oedipus complexes in horror movies?). Overall, this flick has everything that just about every other slasher movie has, except creativity. Most of it looks as if it got made for fun. I seriously doubt that Vancouver wants to be remembered for this. Among the much cooler horror flicks from Canada are "The Brain" and "The Clown Murders".

So, this is definitely not one that I recommend...unless of course you want to see a few naked young women.

I generally like grade B horror movies, but this one just plain 'ol stunk! Bad plot, acting, filming and dialog. Don't waste your time. Some movies are so bad they're funny. This one is so bad it'll just make you regret that you wasted 90 minutes of your life.