| fear, lust, revulsion, confusion |
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| written by chaosmind |
October 30, 2006 - 12:12 PM PST |
in terms of feel, put Tarkovski's Solaris and the original Amityville Horror in a blender and you've got Possession.
A sick, gritty yet impressionistic psychological horror film, the nonlinear storytelling is maddeningly opaque. There is much about the film that reminds me of the feel of D'Ario Argento's Susperia. more sexual, perhaps. there's a nice little moment which alludes to fellating someone on the cross. more for fans of Cronenberg and Lynch than Spielberg and Michael Bay.
*****SPOILERS FOLLOW*****
hands desperately fumbling at the crotch whilst staring at Jesus, hands wrestling with each other like maddened tentacles, hands gripping the knife stabbing at the lover who is not the Devil...
a portrait of developing madness cannot be told in sane fashion. psychological and physiological grotesqueries abound... tales of dying dogs, misspent confessions, milk from the mouth and pulpy bloody soup from the crotch during a hysterically screaming miscarriage... a Lovecraftian Yog-Sotthoth slimy lover in the bed...
lights are turned on and off for no reason other than to plunge the theatre into a strobe light effect, clothes and bodies are put into the refrigerator, people get naked. sex with aliens.
"Stay there at the corner. Bleed for awhile."
there is much of the cruelty and dirty meanness felt in Rosemary's Baby and The Sentinnel (or Last House on the Left, for that matter) but more surreal, like Eraserhead. Even more than From Beyond or John Carpenter's sublimely dark The Mouth Of Madness, this film captures the essence of H.P. Lovecraft's notion "to look on it was to go insane."
"There are corpses in there, at least two bodies. I thought she was pulling my leg, but no, there's blood!"
sublime seventies cinematography (yes, i know it came out in '81), cooler colors except for the blood, the camera is never at rest. sometimes subtle push-ins, crazy handheld work, some delightful reverse-pans... this could have been lensed by Haskell Wexler on a Charlie Manson bad LSD trip.
"...that great, incomprehensible god you reach through FUCKING!"
(vomit)
This is not a normal film. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani star. |
| Don't read the packaging |
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| written by PKoene |
November 12, 2003 - 11:07 AM PST |
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3 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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| Intense, gripping performances by both lead actors. Some nice 1980's Euro-political tidbits for those of us who remeber the Cold War. Weird and sometimes pretentious...like Germans. I wished I hadn't read anything about the movie before watching it. Definitely a good midnighter. |
| Wait a minute... |
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| written by larbeck |
May 21, 2003 - 1:15 PM PDT |
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7 out of 7 members found this review helpful
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...this Women certainly did NOT kill any Giant Squid. I don't want to give it away, but to say when happens is surreal, so creepy, and erotic as hell. And this "Squid" is so much more than that.
Highly Recommended - watch it after midnight with all of the lights off except your beloved CRT. Wear a robe so you will not get arrested for exposure when you go running screaming down the street afterwards. |
| Wha?? |
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| written by evilcupcakes |
May 3, 2003 - 10:21 AM PDT |
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10 out of 11 members found this review helpful
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| There is a fine line between pretension and art. To be honest, I can't tell you which side of the line this film falls, but suffice it to say it walks that line like a Flying Wendella in a windstorm. The biggest reason I would recommend this film is for Isabelle Adjani's performance. After seeing her mostly in languid period pieces and art house favorites, it was stunning to see her give a performance that is this shockingly raw and primal. The story is your run of the mill "Boy meets Girl - Boy loses Girl - Girl shacks up with Giant Squid - Girl kills to keep Giant Squid alive" story. Still, it's an intriguing little piece of cinema. |
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