The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Possession concerns the belief that the human body can be inhabited and control taken over by another entity. Ever since the massive success of The Exorcist (1973), cinema has been dominated by cliches of the demonically possessed being fought off by Catholic priests chanting rituals of exorcism.
Most commonly in cinema the possessing entity is taken to be a demonic force usually of the Christian variety, although there are many examples of possession that come from other cultures. There a good many other works dealing with possession by spirits of the dead or malevolent entities.
Possession is almost always something that is seen as an evil that necessitates a battle for the possessee’s body. More recent years have shown a tendency towards gonzo treatments showing everything from possessed vehicles, items of furniture and laundry presses.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Possession Films.
A Blaxploitation copy of The Exorcist – so blatant that it was sued for copyright infringement. Worth seeing for its entertaining absurdities including the climactic exorcism held on a disco dancefloor
An amazingly bad movie from the VHS era where a woman is exorcised by a televangelist and coughs up a tumor, which crawls out of the trash and possesses her son, driving him to kill and bring bodies home to feed the tumor
A low-budget but nevertheless at times quite funny version of an exorcism film, one that throws out all the tired clichés of the genre
Lucio Fulci attained a cult following for his horror films. This reads like a tatty copy of Dario Argento’s Suspiria that has been bizarrely married to the psychic coma patient premise from Patrick
Teenagers in Salem are forced to play a game where their lives are forfeit and they become possessed by a cursed knife dating from the witch trials
The first of The Amityville Horror sequels and a far more entertaining film than its predecessor by abandoning the pretence at telling a true story and adding a possession plot and makeup effects to the mix
Prolific Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes something like the 18th film with Amityville in its title. This one concerns possessed lumber (!) from the Amityville house
The term Karen has come to mean an entitled woman who complains a great deal. This is a horror comedy about one such Karen who becomes possessed after drinking wine that comes from the Amityville house
No less than the twentieth film spun out around The Amityville Horror. This Blumhouse revival emerges as marginally better than most films with Amityville in the name
Audiences and critics alike hated the first Annabelle – I went into this prequel with little enthusiasm but ended up pleasantly surprised. All it takes is a change of director to David F. Sandberg who provides a series of genuinely eerie jumps
An Asylum film that has the idea of staging a retelling of the true-life Anneliese Michel story that formed the basis of The Exorcism of Emily Rose as a Found Footage film
An Italian-made ripoff of The Exorcist. Probably the most lavishly produced of all Exorcist ripoffs, this soon slips into lurid shock theatrics. Star Carla Gravina should get full marks for going beyond the call of duty
This starts out as a haunted house film then veers off to become a possession story. A tepid effort filled with by-the-numbers jumps that bites off a far more ambitious twist ending than it is capable of adequately delivering
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
The rarity of a really good Found Footage film. Designed to look like lost footage from 1970s psychic experiments, this concerns a scientific team who discover they are dealing with a woman who is demonically possessed
Adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars about the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian queen possessing a modern day woman. Lavishly produced with a series of novelty deaths modeled on The Omen. Also the first mummy film to actually shoot in Egypt
A possession film that takes the Found Footage approach. This takes the traditional approach of Catholic priests intoning exorcism rituals etc and fails to do anything interesting
Marcus Nispel is a director most associated with remakes of other films. In original material here, he is still rehashing moves from other films – an abandoned asylum and every shock effect in the possession/exorcism playbook
The early 2020s saw some strong,d intelligent variations on body-hopping themes. This is one variant filled with a series of wildly disorienting spins that frequently jerk the carpet out as Toby Kebbell becomes possessed by an entity
Hilariously eccentric Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman collaboration in which John Cusack finds an office building that has a portal that takes someone through into actor John Malkovich’s head. The wacky spins that the script places on the idea are ingenious
Following Paranormal Activity, The Asylum made a series of Found Footage films with the novelty selling point of claiming the films were taking place on the sites of famous murders or haunted locations
Justifiably obscure 1980s video release that has been intended as a copy of The Evil Dead concerning possible Viking berserker spirits amok in backwoods Utah. Cheap and routine on almost all counts
Bollywood conducts a reasonable attempt to make its own equivalent of the zombie film in this mini-series about people at siege from undead British colonial soldiers awakened
Nicolas Cage career from the mid-2010s gives all impression he has chosen projects for the full-on dementia value. Here he lets all stops go as the spirit of his late wife possesses the body of the teenage daughter of the woman he is seeing
A blatant Italian copy of The Exorcist. An exploitation film made with almost zero directorial style that only has the schlock amusements of its attempts to outdo The Exorcist going for it
A modestly successful Bollywood horror film that becomes a copy of The Exorcist but does generate a reasonable degree of atmosphere
The sequel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where the first film’s humour gets lost amid repetition and blown up by a big-budget. William Sadler’s Death however proves a scene-stealer
Head-scratching Australian oddity in which a middle-aged man becomes possessed and suddenly able to sing with the voice of Billie Holliday
For the stew of elements this throws together – a famous unsolved murder case, ghosts, a blind psychic killer, possession, a sinister psychiatrist – it is surprising how dull the film that emerges is
Quite a decent little low-budget film about a top secret government agency set up to despatch Lovecraftian Elder Gods.
Horror film with an interesting cast line-up about a group on a weekend getaway who play a boardgame that serves to bring out secrets and hidden desires
Fascinatingly cryptic debut film from Osgood Perkins. Perkins avoids cliche jumpshocks and proves a master of the slow burn film, focusing on irrelevant detail before throwing in something wild and outre
In the aftermath of the huge success of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, this was another supposedly true account of an exorcism. Made on a low-budget, this fails to surmount the cliches of The Exorcist
Hammer Films adapt Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars about a revived mummy queen. A troubled production that ended up being one of Hammer’s never-quite-rans
Fourth of the Child’s Play films where the importation of Hong Kong director Ronnie Yu doesn’t do much to enliven proceedings, although this does embellish the black humour element considerably
Australia’s Philippou Brothers made the word of mouth hit Talk to Me and return here with this equally creepy film with Sally Hawkins as a sinister foster mother
Akira director/creator Katsuhiro Otomo returns with this live-action manga adaptation about a wandering exorcist. Very different to any of Otomo’s anime, this is much quieter and rooted in Japanese folklore but has some undeniably way out scenes
Someone seems to have had the idea of combining Steven Spielberg’s killer truck film Duel with The Exorcist to produce an absurdly entertaining film about a possessed car
The Car concerning a possessed car is one of the forgotten films of the 1970s. Why it has produced a sequel 42 years later is a scratch of the head. Not that the two films even resemble one another
A horror film about the life of Jesus as a child. That’s not quite what we end up getting but it is enough to give this a bizarre freakshow appeal and get this site watching. Behind that though, this is surprisingly traditional
An almost quite good film from Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Productions about imprisoned evil stirring beneath a monastery. The build-up is well done and the film only falters at a weak ending
From the great era of Canuxploitation, an entertainingly ridiculous film about a possessed child wreaking psychic havoc and an often absurd series of deaths against those who are mean to her
Follow-up to the 2000 tv mini-series adaptation of Dune, this adapts Frank Herbert’s two books sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. The production lacks the depth of its predecessor
The very first of the Chucky films. At the time, this seemed a very silly and at times ridiculous killer doll film and not the basis of an ongoing series of sequels that have lasted more than three decades
The first Child’s Play felt like an incredibly silly film. However, this first sequel takes the same elements and constructs them into a much tighter, better package
The third and probably the least regarded of the Chucky films. This for some reason takes place in a military academy. The outrageous black humour of the later entries is absent and in its place a mean-spirited sadism
Originally intended as a Demons sequel, director Michele Soavi decided to head in more arty directions. Imagine a Demons sequel mounted with the artistic ambitions of producer Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films
The first film from Jon Watts, director of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and produced by Eli Roth, about a clown costume that possesses the wearer. You have to admire the film for the ballsiness with which it was made
From director Fruit Chan, director of the great Dumplings, a film that takes a satiric jab at Hong Kong’s rental shortage crisis and concerns haunted apartments
1950s B movie director Bert I Gordon makes a film in which present-day schoolgirl Susan Swift is possessed by her ancestor who was burned at the stake as a witch
Modest film about a man who becomes involved with a woman who increasingly appears to be responsible for a series of murders. The director and lead actress create a sense of mystery and fascination about what is happening
Supposedly based on a true story. A film that feels written entirely by cliches taken from every other haunting and exorcism film, but you cannot deny that director James Wan generates a more than fair degree of spooky atmosphere
If you want a genuinely scary spook show that will make you jump out of your seat, you would not go wrong with this. On the other hand, the Conjuring films with their claims to true stories of peddle superstition and fabricate most of their so-called facts
The third of the Conjuring films, this lacks the presence of James Wan in the director’s seat while peddling an even more highly dubious Based on a True story claim regarding a demonic possession
Adaptation of DC’s Hellblazer comic-book that gets the Hollywood treatment where all of the character’s background and look has been thrown out and the part badly miscast with Keanu Reeves
Early Mike Mendez film that quickly abandons being a standard venture into a haunted convent and launches into an entertainingly over-the-top splatter show filled with zombified nuns
An anthology of three tales on an occult theme. The standout among these is the opening episode about a courtroom trial of a woman who was possessed
Xavier Gens film from the screenwriters of The Conjuring films based on a supposedly true-life exorcism. One was hoping that Gens would do amazing things with the exorcism genre but he only rehashes the same cliches
The seventh of the Child’s Play films with the killer doll Chucky. I never much cared for the original series but the modern films – those with Chucky’s name in the title – have become a lot wittier and playful, constantly making jokes back to the rest of the series
Sixth entry in the Child’s Play series, made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original. Contains lots of fanservice and some surprise cameos. This makes an effort to cut back the black humour and go back to being scary
TV mini-series that turns the discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb into an Indiana Jones adventure. But everything is played with a constant barrage of one-liners and action sequences so silly you can’t take any of the show seriously
A horror film that delves into pleasingly dark places as a man finds that his life is being taken over by his childhood imaginary companion that he realises wants to possess his body
Bryan Bertino has become a Must Watch director ever since The Strangers. Here he makes an uncanny slow burn film about a family gathered to tend a dying father as something evil waits to claim his soul
Pilot for an unsold tv series that was later released theatrically produced by Alfred Hitchcock’s company. Leslie Nielsen plays an occult detective and the film proves surprisingly well-shot and atmospheric
Director Paul Solet made an incredibly creepy debut film Grace. His follow-up has Keir Gilchrist imprisoned on home detention with an ankle bracelet only to find the house is haunted
Director Rob Savage made a splash with the Zoom horror film Host. His second film here is an insanely crazed horror film that is shot from the point-of-view of a dashcam
A passable variant on the usual haunting and possession cliches overloaded with Catholic imagery before becoming a surprise unofficial prequel to a classic horror series
Celebrated British horror anthology, which tells five ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. All are strong stories with The Ventriloquist’s Dummy segment in particular having become regarded as a classic
A 1980s VHS released horror about a series of novelty killings at a health spa. This contains some entertainingly bizarre death and a surprise number of later to be famous faces
Outrageous New Zealand-made effort that fondly recalls the 1980s splatter comedies of Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson et al. This often feels like former teen metalheads looking back and puncturing the pretensions of their youth
Scott Derrickson’s supposed true-life account of a NYPD cop turned exorcist rehashes every hackneyed possession cliche the horror genre has, yet there comes a point where the film attains an odd conviction
Supposedly based on a true story, a possession and exorcism film from filmmaker Lee Daniels about an African-American family undergoing a supernatural assault
A unique and original Polish film that throws out all the possession cliches and is instead about a man possessed by a Jewish dybbuk – the spirit of a girl killed during the Holocaust – on his wedding night
One hoped this might have taken the approach of featuring a demonically possessed tongue but more mundanely uses tongue as meaning language. In reality, this is a poorly made film about a team of ghostbusters searching a haunted bar
James Wan has an exemplary track record in one’s opinion, you think this would extend to anything he produces. Here all we get are series of tired haunted house cliches before a twist ending that makes no real sense
Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, returns with a possession film that uniquely takes places in Virtual Reality as Carly Pope must use a device that enters her comatose mother’s dreamspace
Yes, exactly what the title announces – a film about a possessed killer Christmas tree. A rather amusing Christmas horror entry from prolific low-budget British producer Scott Jeffrey/Scott Chambers
Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm
Miles Doleac is better known as an actor but also has a number of credits as a director. Here he both directs and stars as a former priest haunted by an exorcism gone wrong
Halfway reasonable Stephen King adapted tv mini-series. This has been placed in the directorial hands of King’s worst adapter Mick Garris who at least holds his worst tendencies in check
This has an insane plot about Satanists stealing the Shroud of Turin to clone a body to incarnate The Devil and a priest possessed by the archangel Michael wading into action with a glowing sword
Another Found Footage variant on an exorcism film. This was a big box-office hit but only ends up repeating the tired cliches of the exorcism and possession genre
Ken Russell makes an historical work about the Catholic Church’s persecution of a supposed outbreak of possession at a convent in 17th Century France. As to be expected of Russell, this is shocking and outrageous. Oliver Reed gives one of his best performance
Jason Connery directs a film that draws upon the basics of The Keep about soldiers venturing into a tomb in Iraq where they awaken a great evil housed there
Vincent Price is an upstanding 19th Century magistrate who is possessed by a spirit known as The Horla. An interesting treatment of possession themes made prior to The Exorcist
Forgotten, unsold tv pilot based on the Marvel Comics sorceror superhero. Unlike other Marvel tv properties of this era, this has an imaginativeness in its reach for esoteric spaces that favourably compares to the comic-book original
One among a handful of animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this conducts a passable telling of the origin story of the Sorcerer Supreme
A copycat possessed doll film that came out in the aftermath of the Child’s Play films. A routine effort about an evil spirit uncovered in a Mexican mine that inhabits a child’s doll.
Paul Schrader’s original version of Exorcist: The Beginning that was junked by the producers. This is a far more subtle telling of the same story that eschews shock effect in favour of a moral struggle of the soul
An enthusiastically full-tilt horror comedy. This draws from the classic The Hidden in its premise of a demon that hops between bodies, possessing the person that kills its previous host. Dolph Lundgren has the time of his life
Rodrigo Cortes, who made the fine Buried, directs a Young Adult horror, which is produced by no less than Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, concerning supernatural happenings at a girl’s boarding school.
A South Korean possession film that creates a fascinatingly outlandish and original plot by dropping the usual cliches to instead draw on Buddhism to create its own mythology
The Enfield Haunting is a supposedly true-life haunting that most audiences are familiar with from The Conjuring 2; this is an earlier tv mini-series treatment that offers a more realistically grounded telling
An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s who sets out to win the big role she missed out on in her previous life
One of at least three identically titled films coming out around the same time based around the popularity of escape rooms. This has a group trapped in a room with an unleashed demonic force
Don’t be put off by the Young Adult label. Look past this and you will end up with one of the most original premises and one of the most beautifully written films seen in some time.
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map, both making their film debuts here. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
One of the few remakes of the 00s/10s that delivers the goods. While messing around with the plot set-up with mixed results, this quickly goes for broke to create a satisfying show on most accounts
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return to make a sequel to their earlier low-budget cult hit. With a far better budget this time, they have even more fun with Raimi going completely over-the-top with a delirious silliness that will bring tears to the eyes
A new take on The Evil Dead films, the fifth film in the series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries