Now let's check out another kind of horror entirely – relationship horror! 1981's POSSESSION starts with the crumbling of a marriage between an international spy (Sam Neill) and his wife (Isabelle Adjani) and ends with… well, I'm not sure. Maybe the apocalypse?
This French/West German production starts off like a psychological thriller, as Neill and Adjani tear apart their apartment and local restaurants arguing – she wants to leave, he wants her to stay, she insists it's not another man but won't say why, he insists she's neglecting their kid (Michael Hogben), and on and on. But, eventually, the supernatural stuff starts to creep in, and boy is it gross.
The prolonged scenes of the couple screaming at each other (and Adjani screaming all by herself) start to become a little too much about halfway through the film, but if you can stick with it you'll get to the inexplicable and unpredictable ending, involving doppelgangers, tentacle creatures and maybe an invasion. Not sure on that one.
Shot in Berlin when the wall was still up, POSSESSION gets a lot of mileage out of its locations, using the divided city as a perfect backdrop for the divided relationship. It's almost as if the entire city is a prison, the couple's apartment is a prison, the relationship is a prison. The whole movie is claustrophobic. It's kind of like THE SHINING, right down to Neill's Jack Nicholson-esque performance.
Speaking of Sam Neill, it's usually Adjani who gets the acclaim for this flick, and she does deserve it, but as a JURASSIC PARK fan, it's cool to see Neill really flex his acting muscles in a role that requires complete insanity.
The film has a couple darkly comic moments, but is mostly fairly unpleasant, what with all of the characters fighting all of the time. You also get the impression that rather than simply being a mystery, there's a possibility the filmmakers themselves might not know exactly what's going on at all times. Still, you've never seen a flick like this one before and you'll probably never see one again, so it's worth checking out.
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