The Possession (2012)

All exorcism films are the same. Let's face it, they are. Someone gets possessed, most people don't believe, the possessed gets more and more demon-like, people who didn't believe in the possession believe, a religious guy comes in to perform exorcism, demon resists, demon is exorcised, the end. At least 'The Devil Inside' actually had a different ending.

'The Possession' finds Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a.k.a. John Winchester), in the aftermath of his divorce, taking his kids, Emily (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport), for the weekend at his new house, while tolerating his ex-wife Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and her new boyfriend Brett (Grant Show)...Wait, Boyd? Boyd from 'Point Pleasant'? So we have a demon hunter (Morgan), a demon and the servant of Lucifer (Show), this should be a blast! Anyway, at a garage sale (Or yard sale whichever side of the ocean you're on) Emily acquires a box which apparently can't be opened. She opens it. Big mistake, as inside that box was a demon just waiting to possess something. The religious guy who comes in later is Tzadok (Matisyahu).

And this film immediately lost me when it came up with the usual crap about the film being based on a true story. And then looking into this film online, I found it actually was. Or according to Wikipedia it is, and, as we all know, if it's on Wikipedia it must be true. Apparently someone tried to sell a Jewish wine cabinet on eBay, and attached a story with it about eerie things happening. Hell, here's the official website http://www.dibbukbox.com/story.htm. Of course none of the stories relate to what happen in the film.

Firstly, the acting is good. Great in fact. The one thing which most horror films nowadays is having poor characters in it, having characters which we wouldn't really care about if they died or not, either by not developing the characters enough, by giving us unlikable characters, or from the actors giving terrible performances. The thing about this film is that it successfully makes us care about them, with great acting, and it keeps the actual threat in the film fresh; it doesn't focus on the characters so much that we forget about the main plot. Matisyahu and Morgan certainly bring a lot to this film, as does Madison Davenport.

I certainly have to give particular praise to Natasha Calis, she was absolutely fantastic. Whenever there was a scene in which she was possessed (In particular) she blew me away, and you know how much I hate child actors. If I say Calis was fantastic she was bloody fantastic. The personality of the character can flip at the click of a finger. When she portrays the demon, just staring at you, at one point Clyde says "All I see is that thing (demon) staring back at me" (Or something like that), and you really can see that, when she stares as the demon possessed, she really does send chills down your spine.

I suppose it's also because of the special effects and make-up, which does genuinely help create tension. I mean, look at the pictures if you don't believe me. The effects showing hand movements under the skin and her eyeballs rolling around just makes your skin crawl. The make-up meanwhile...well, look at the picture on your right, how does that NOT freak you out?

Now, I have been telling you the positives for this film, and believe me it is a good film. But, is it a good horror film? Well, not really. I admit there were two instances which did genuinely scare me, one being the exorcism book being thrown across the room (Which was odd seeing as how it was used in every single trailer, timing I suppose) and a later scene which involved being in a room with hardly any light.

But apart from that, the film isn't that scary. Besides the fact most of the scares are predictable, the film makers seem to think that turning up the volume at times is scary. It isn't, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before (Though I can't remember which post it was), but it's just a cheap means on getting scares. If a person gets scared because of a genuine scary moment, or even a jump scare, the viewer can at least laugh at themselves. Turning up the volume when someone thumps the window annoys the viewer, mainly because it gives the viewer a headache rather than scaring them.

So really, the film is good, it's entertaining, you can get behind the characters, the flow of the plot is good, the acting is great. As someone who doesn't normally like exorcism films, I did find this film entertaining, mainly because of the characters, Natasha Calis and the odd bit of humor. The problem is, it's just not scary, the scares are predictable and cheap, and that's not what you're looking for in a horror film. So really, don't think of it as a horror...bizarrely.