December 2020 – She Really Needs a Priest

Let’s Talk About Possessor

4 Things:

There were some film sequences with flashing lights and colors that made me physically nauseous. So beware.

If you like David Cronenberg (Dad) films, you’ll probably like this.

If you like Black Mirror, you’ll probably like this.

A lot of stabbing. Like, A LOT of stabbing.

Possessor is Brandon Cronenberg’s second outing – his debut was 2012’s Antiviral.

Cast includes

Jennifer Jason Leigh ❤

Andrea Riseborough, who you might recognize from the 2020 version of The Grudge, Mandy and Black Mirror.

Sean Bean. He lives up to his meme in a deliciously gory way. Such a fine fire poker bludgeoning hasn’t been seen since Beverly wielded the tool in the men’s washroom in 1994’s Serial Mom.

Christopher Abbot. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t recognize him from anything. Sorry Chris.

Possessor falls into a few horror categories. Science fiction horror, psychological horror and also body horror.

The plot involves an unknown agency that has the technology to transfer a person into someone else’s body – allowing them to control the host. Unknown agencies being the nefarious organizations that they are, the hosts are used to perform assassinations. The victims are high-profile targets of ill repute.

The struggle occurs when the main character, Tasya (Riseborough) encounters Colin: her next victim. Colin is dating the daughter of her next target. They end up fighting for control of Colin’s body and mind.

This film also explores how Tasya begins to fall away from her herself, forgetting who she is. She’s guided throughout by Girder (Jason Leigh), who interviews her after each job. Girder provides trigger objects to Tasya to gauge where she is mentally. As the interviews progress, Tasya seems to care less about the objects. At one point she expresses guilt over something she did as a child, but by the end, that guilt is gone. You can never tell if Girder actually cares for Tasya or whether she’s trying to completely disconnect her from herself and make her the ultimate assassin.

There’s an interesting thread throughout the film that focuses on dishonesty. Almost all of the characters in this film were dishonest with themselves and the people around them. The parallel drawn to our lives on social media is noted.

The film is aesthetically stunning, the gore scenes were done really well. I did have a couple of problems with this movie. I feel like there were a lot of unanswered questions and I had to actually research the ending to fully understand what happened. I get it now but…

I like bleak films, but this was bleak from start to finish. Par for the course for 2020.

Because I felt like something was missing, I’d rate this film 4 knives out of 5.

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Images:

Movie Poster- https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/26/possessor-review-brandon-cronenberg-andrea-riseborough-sc0fi-horror

Fighting for Control – https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/possessor-trailer-cronenberg-body-horror-1234574434/

‘Possessor’ First Trailer: David Cronenberg’s Son Unleashes Gruesome Body Horror

Let’s NOT Talk About Cannibal Holocaust

Disgusting.

Fuck no.

Just no need.

Who is this for?

I wanted to do something fun and different. Explore some new forms of horror. First stop: Italy. I like gelato. I liked Suspiria. Why not?

I researched the big names: Argento, Barva (Mario and Lamberto), Fulci and Deodato.

Italian horror basically breaks down into four subtypes:

Exploitation : Lots o’ titties/ vibrant colors ❤

Giallo : Over-the-top bloody murder mysteries where the formula is : hot chick, titties, blood. ❤

Nunsploitation: I mean the Vatican is there. I get it, but still… weird.

Cannibalism.

I remember seeing a gruesome poster for Cannibal Holocaust when I was a teenager somewhere and thinking, “What in the actual fuck? “

I needed to know more.

I would later regret this.

I learned that ALL the animal violence in the film is REAL. That’s a big fuck no. I can handle gore if I know it’s fake. I absolutely draw the line at animal violence, fake or otherwise. Nope.

I learned that the actors had no idea what they were getting into when they accepted roles in this film. The lead actor, Gabriel Yorke (Alan Yates) was never even given a script throughout the filming. Yorke, in particular, feared that he had unknowingly signed up for a snuff film.

This film pushed the actors to their absolute limits, and I think Deodato was a fucking sadist. I’m all for artistic liberty but quite frankly, I feel movies like this serve no one except for the director’s ego. Where do we draw the line? Films like A Serbian Film or Human Centipede? Are we sure we’re not just pandering to someone’s depravity?

Instead of including pics to promote this atrocity of a “movie”, I’m going to include an interview with the lead actor from the film. You can see that this man is fucking haunted.

This putrid piece of gratuitous shit aside, it seems like Italian horror regurgitated formulas and once they reached peak saturation and sophisticated, psychological horror movies like Silence of the Lambs came onto the scene, people were no longer seeking the shock, gore and exploitation films. Everyone needs a break. Trends die – thank God.

I am not rating this film because I never finished it. I saw enough and I don’t wish to promote it.

Next Stop: Korea.

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