The Possession of Michael King

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

"Wow, here we go again: another generic possession movie" is what I was thinking before watching this movie, but man was I surprised.

What we have here people, is possibly the best possession movie since The Exorcist. After years of disappointment, we get a gosh darn thrilling, creepy, and interesting movie of this sub-genre. If you're a skeptic of the found footage style of filming, I would say this movie will change your mind. You get up close and personal with the protagonist and his descent into madness. And speaking of the protagonist, kudos to the lead actor because he carries the entire movie (as he should).

The only gripe I have would be that the plot is underwhelming because if you watched any other possession movie, you know what's going to happen. Other than that, this movie represents the genre extremely well. It's a must see for horror fans!

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.

If I find a movie with an intriguing premise, I ignore the reviews and give it a shot. An interesting story that begs you to find out what transpires, goes a long way. Michael King, an atheist, finds himself a widower as the result of his wife's trust in a spiritualist. So he sets out to prove all such people wrong, that there is no such thing as God or the devil, by making a documentary debunking the existence of the paranormal. He uses himself as the victim (er, subject), where he invites all sorts of practitioners of the occult to try and do their worst.

You can see where this is going just from the title. The Possession of Michael King, genre-wise, falls under a few catagories: It is part faux-documentary, part found footage, and part Paranormal Activity voyeuristic camera monitoring. Anyone on here complaining this is just another found footage movie is incorrect, and it's actually one of the things I DIDN'T like about this movie: It breaks from all these formats to go full-on cinematic. I think this would have been more effective had it been filmed by someone (fictitiously) inside the movie, not a cinematographer and director trying to find the right angles. I also found fault in the ending, where they spoon-feed you something that happened earlier in the film... which I felt they had already clearly spelled out before.

However, I did enjoy the story and the performances, and especially liked that Michael couldn't figure out which ritual actually caused the possession. That was a nice touch. Overall, as a descent-into-madness/"Possession Of" movie, this one fares pretty well.

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.