13 Nights of Shocktober: Possession (1981)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 4: Psychological Horror Night
Beyond the Realm of Human Desire

Possession (1981)

The two times I’ve watched this movie were when it aired on TCM as part of TCM Underground, and it is a perfect movie for their late night weekend programming. Possession is some “weird, wild stuff.” If people know about this movie, it is most likely as the movie where Isabelle Adjani has sex with a squid monster. Nearly a full half hour was cut from Possession for its theatrical run in the U.S. in 1981, but the restored version runs at just over 2 hours and that is the version you’ll find on TCM. It is also available on DVD. Possession is most easily described as a horror movie though it is unlike most horror movies, even off the beaten path horror movies. If there is such a thing as Marital/Divorce Horror, David Cronenberg's The Brood and Andrzej Zulawski's Possession are perfect examples.

Possession begins as nothing more than a well-acted and well-shot marital drama. Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani play Mark and Anna, an unhappy couple living near the Berlin wall. Mark has just returned home from a business trip (it’s never quite clear what his job is) to find that his marriage is at an end. Anna disappears soon after. Then Mark receives a cryptic phone call from her saying that she needs time “to think…about me.” Mark discovers that Anna has been having an affair and receives another mysterious phone call, this time from a man saying that Anna is with him and won’t be coming back. Mark finds out the name and address and of her lover, an older man named Heinrich. But when Mark goes to Heinrich’s apartment to get Anna back he finds out that Heinrich hasn’t seen Anna for a long time. Nothing remotely scary or supernatural happens for almost a full hour and then it turns into horror territory in a way that is somehow both slow and abrupt.

The horror elements begin when a private investigator hired by Mark to track down Anna finds her in a dilapidated and dimly lit apartment. What he finds there and what follows make this an incredibly unusually movie. There is a monster that is like a creature from an H.P. Lovecraft story. The monster is hidden mostly in shadow but what you can see is covered in blood, slime, and is gross, gross stuff. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to reveal that there is a monster in Possession (I know I wouldn’t have watched this movie without knowing about the monster) or any of the other strange scenes because nothing is as strange or horrifying as actually seeing these scenes.

More than the monster, the actions and behavior of Mark and Anna make Possession an uncomfortable, strange, and weird, wild movie. Though Anna leaves Mark for her new “lover” she still returns back to the apartment to visit their son. Anna and Mark’s interactions during these short visits are bizarre. They move from arguments that any strained married couple would have to fiercely beating each other. In one scene Isabelle Adjani runs out of their apartment after Mark has slapped her and she screams in the street with a mouthful of blood. A truck carrying wrecked cars swerves to miss them and crashes. Then Anna gets a wild eyed look and wanders off and Mark plays soccer with a group of nearby school kids. In another scene Isabelle Adjani is walking through a tunnel with a bag of groceries at night and then convulses wildly. She twirls around, flailing her arms, screaming and it goes on for a very long time. Anna’s former lover Heinrich, played by Heinz Bennent, is a strange, odd character. When he and Mark meet he is unusually calm and wants them to be friends and grabs Mark’s hands puts them on his bare chest. Later, when he visits Mark, Heinrich is wearing a white blazer over a black unbuttoned shirt and speaks in riddles and proverbs and moves around like he is performing a drunken ballet. He also knows martial arts and lives with his mother.

Isabelle Adjani won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in this movie. There is much more to her performance than just acting crazy and screaming. Anna is a complex character whose motivations are not spelled out. Adjani is great at portraying a woman that is under great stress and does not understand herself why these things are happening to her. She actually as a duel role and also playing, Helen, Mark and Anna’s son’s teacher, with whom Mark has an affair. Sometimes Mark is aware of how much Hellen and Anna look alike and other times he seems to put it out of his mind. Sam Neil also gives a great performance, maybe the best I’ve seen from him. When called for, Neil is excellent at being creepy, crazy, and menacing (see In the Mouth of Madness, Event Horizon). His performance has an intensity that matches the unhinged tone of the film. He gets as many odd and strange moments as Adjani and, to an extent, also has a duel role. The nature of his second role is difficult to describe.

Possession is an incredibly well made film and, tentacled squid monster aside, is visually interesting. It is filled with low and canted angles and tracking shots. Scenes are staged and framed in striking ways that give this film an usual atmosphere right from the beginning. Early on Mark and Anna meet in a restaurant to discuss getting a divorce and they sit at separate tables around the corner from each other like they are in a spy movie. He chases her through the restaurant and has to be tackled by waiters and chefs. It’s a great scene for the performances and filmmaking. This happens in the marital drama half of the movie and it is unlike scenes in other marital dramas of unhappy couples arguing about their emotions and problems which are usually dull and uninteresting. This scene is great and interesting because of its unconventional nature, the full throttle intense performances from Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani, and the filmmaking style of director Andrzej Zulawski.

Possession moves slow but draws you in with interesting scenes of characters having dramatic moments. Then it is intriguing in its odd, bizarre nature and just gets stranger and stranger. There are plenty of scenes of Mark and Anna dealing with their dissolving marriage to make this feel like a John Cassevettees movie. There is also a squid monster, car crashes, a shootout with police, and an ending that is confounding and unnerving and haunting. I was reminded of The Brood, Hellraiser, Blue Valentine, and several David Lynch movies while watching Possession. There are themes and subtext buried under the weirdness that really give this film a lasting effect on the viewer. I’ll save deciphering those for another viewing.