Director: Scott B Hansen
Starring: Scott B Hansen, Bill Moseley, Chris Minor, Nicky Jasper, Jake Brinn. USA. 1h 24m
Considering how popular Found Footage movies are, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done by a bigger studio. Our fascination with watching online train wrecks, drama and spooky videos are all satisfied with this somewhat inventive horror that starts well but sadly falls into too many horror clichés before burning out.
The budget seems to have been spent on Bill Moseley 5 minute intro where he plays a priest performing a fairly clumsy exorcism on a young girl in the basement of a house, the lords prayer is used instead of Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, and a few lines are missing, the scene is shot well but doesn’t make sense, at one point the girl with all the stereotypical garb, long dark hair, spewing Latin and a long white nightgown, levitates and attacks, everyone just watching her or running away and she’s only challenged after dispatching the unfortunate man not before. Personally I’d have believed the scene more if Mosley was the possessed and not a priest, could you imagine letting him rip in a role like this!!?? Either way the exorcism is an utter failure and the filming of it leaks out and sparks some interest from a young man who desires something meaty for his theology homework assignment, after investigating the original site and getting spooked by a potential haunting, he devises a kick starter to return to the site and actively offering himself up to be possessed on a live web cast.
I’ve watched a few possession movies, and this is new to me! It’s such an interesting idea but I feel it’s fumbled here, a few times it just loses the excitement As it falls into the dark hole cliches surrounding exorcism movies.
Obviously a stunt like this attracts a large crowd of people and he soon finds his backing has surpassed its target, but for some reason the youngster, who is clearly out of his depths, decides to use the money to hire a student nurse look after his vitals during the experiment because calling your priest this is too sensible, and this comes after he actually watched two priests die while trying exorcise a person in the same room he’s going to become possessed in!!!
SBH want’s his audience to believe that the second you touch a Ouija board you’re instantly open for possession and providing the buy into that the film kind of works, got to go the extra mile to try and writing a storyline and it definitely feels it was added part way through the film but there is some kind of connection between what’s happening now and the opening possession. but he manhandles that concept and with a wooden acting he is also struggling with it just feels too cocky to be believed.
Often looking and sounding like a YouTube production itself the Possession experiment, definitely has a lot of quality and technical problems which is such a shame because the whole setup of having a Kickstarter possession in itself is a wonderful concept, I really wanted the film to be more.
There is a creepy foreboding atmosphere which slowly creeps in as the possession itself doesn’t just affect its intended target and an ethos that this is a bigger demonic plan starts to open up the playing field, but it’s really hard to get by the acting and overall poor execution.
Rating 3/10
Related: Inner Demons (2014), Death of a Vlogger (2019), E Demon (2018) The Cleansing Hour (2019)
Lists: Online Occultism on Film
Spotlight: Bill Moseley
Trailer
Admit One Film Addict 