The Possession

The Demon Inside

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Rated: PG-13  Mature thematic material involving violence and disturbing sequences
Release Date: August 31, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 31 minutes

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Director: Ole Bornedal
Writers: Juliet Snowden, Stiles White
Cast:  Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis, Jay Brazeau, Madison Davenport, Matisyahu, Grant Show

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SYNOPSIS:  A young girl buys a locked engraved wooden box at a yard sale, unaware that a malicious ancient spirit is trapped inside and wants to possess the girl.

REVIEW: Writer/Director Ole Bornedal, noted for the Ghost House Underground film The Substitute, has been interested in film from an early age. He has written and directed several Danish acclaimed films, and makes his major American horror debut in a demonic possession sub-genre that is filled with all-time classic films that are difficult to top or compare to. Written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, scribes of the 2005 Boogeyman and the 2009 Nicolas Cage film Knowing, this film takes a religious suspense story and brings it a little closer to home. 

The product of a divorce from their mother Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick, Man on a Ledge), the process has been difficult on the two daughters of father Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Watchmen) having visitation and custody rights of Em (Natasha Calis, NBCs The Firm) and sister Hannah (Madison Davenport, Over the Hedge). During the trip to Clyde's new house, Clyde and the girls stop at a yard sale. Em is attracted to an antique engraved box while Clyde buys dishes and other stuff for the new house. Later that night, Em and Clyde attempt to open the box, but the ornate wooden box does not seem to have any way or latches to open its lid. Awoken during the night by strange murmuring, she brings the box to bed and catches her clothes on a hidden latch that opens the box. With strange and old jars inside, filled with toys, a tooth, and other odd treasures, the box becomes Em's favorite possession. Over the next few weeks, Em becomes increasingly violent and withdrawn from her school work, family and friends, and becomes more attached and possessive of the box. In an effort to help his daughter, Clyde researches the carvings on the box and discovers that it is not just an ordinary box - but an antique device meant to trap and imprison an ancient demon known in the Jewish faith as The Taker of Children. As a last resort, Clyde seeks the advice and help from a Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Tzadok (Matisyahu,Matisyahu Live!) to rid his daughter of the growing threat from within.

The Possession is a creepy and stylish suspense thriller in the vein of late 70s and early 80s religious suspense thrillers like The Exorcist and The Omen. Certainly, The Possession is not of the caliber of either of the two aforementioned classic films, but The Possession hearkens back to that era where the dread of the story is more paramount than quick cheap scares. Director Ole Bornedal has gained enough experience in the horror genre to know his way around a movie set. Filled with beautiful imagery and startling camera work, Bornedal pay homage to the classics of the past without tarnishing the story of the present. Sure, there are a few ‘possession’ movies a year, most notably The Devil Inside from last fall and The Rite in recent theatrical release, but Bornedal makes great use of returning the story to a family unit – albeit a broken one.
The action and suspense starts immediately, and really does not let up. From the first moments where a middle-aged woman cleaning her house, hearing whispers from the mysterious dibbuk box, decides to take a ballpeen hammer to the artifact - and fails to dire and near-fatal consequences - to the first moments that Em becomes captivated by the same box at a yard sale, the story maintains a sense of mounting dread and suspense. And as Em becomes more engrained with her connection to the box and the demon within it, the physical and psychological damage to Em, and the fractured family that loves her, may be too much to overcome.

What makes a solid and creepy story better in this case is the strength of the visuals and the strength of the film's actors. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a neglectful dad who abandoned his family in favor of his coaching career, but who is looking to make amends as best as he can. He is intelligent and thoughtful, a bit too much of both to be in a movie of this type. He seems like a real person, not just a character. The same can be said for Kyra Sedgwick. The story really goes together, though, with the casting of Natasha Calis as the daughter afflicted, Calis shows both the demeanor of a girl dealing with the difficulties of divorce and the addiction and terror of being slowly consumed by a ancient spirit. Madison Davenport brings a solid performance as Hannah. Grant Show, as Stephanie's new boyfriend Brett, brings a stability to her life while wedging instability to the rest of the family unit. Rounding out the cast is Matisyahu as the young Jewish Rabbi who answers the pleads of a desperate father who just wants his daughter back.

As for the visuals, one can not really do better than oversized moths swarming in a closed room or out of one's mouth. Add in grotesque deformities of an innocent terrified girl, and extreme brutality against a man and his pearly whites, and you have a film that keeps giving until it hurts. The tone is grainy and sparse, jumping between scenes with abrupt jump-cuts, cuts to black, or fades to black. My only issue was the choice for the sound editing where a crescendo of strings at the end of a suspenseful scene cuts off to silence during the jump-cut to the next scene with a different score. Sometimes its worked sometime not.

The Possession is a rare flick that is better than its trailers. It delivers on story, performances, creepy visuals, and a few wonderfully placed demented scenes that make it all worth sitting on the edge of your seat. It is not a soon-to-be classic, but The Possession is nine tenths of the law. 

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WORTH:  Matinee or DVD

Red Dawn (2012)

Wolverines! Redux

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Rated: PG-13 Intense action, language and intense war violence
Release Date: November 2, 2012
Runtime:  TBD

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Director: Dan Bradley
Writers: Carl Ellsworth, Jeremy Passmore, based on the original movie by Kevin Reynolds and Jihn Milius
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Isabel Lucas, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Brett Cullen

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SYNOPSIS: The quiet town of Spokane, Washington is invaded by North Korean forces, putting the strategic location under Marshall law. Only a small band of high schoolers and a marine on leave escape and start fighting back.

REVIEW: Dan Bradley, long time stunt coordinator on such films as Crank and the Matt Damon Bourne trilogy and second unit director of films like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Green Zone, steps up to the director's chair with the long-shelved remake of the 1984 Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen film Red Dawn. Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia) and Jeremy Passmore (Special) rewrite the Kevin Reynolds and John Milius story, exchanging Colorado for Washington and the snowy mountains for a more urban setting.

After six years in the Marines, Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth, The Cabin in the Woods) returns on leave to join his quarterback brother Matty (Josh Peck, Aliens in the Attic) and widowed sheriff father Tom (Brett Cullen, The Dark Knight Rises) in the Washington city of Spokane. One early morning, soldiers parachute from the sky and military vehicles and equipment rolls through the streets. Escaping in his truck with his brother, Robert (Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games), Daryl (Connor Cruise, Seven Pounds) and others, Jed evades the North Korean armies to their cabin in the woods outside of the city. Picking up other teen stragglers Toni (Adrianne Palicki, Legion), Danny (Edwin Hodge, Big Momma's House), and out-of-towners Julie (Alyssa Diaz, Shark Night 3D) and Victor (Julian Alcaraz, Haywire). Soon realizing that the invading armies will not just leave them alone, Jed and the others decide to take the fight to the North Koreans. Outfitting everyone in the group, Jed trains the boys and girls to be guerrilla fighters and sets them against the occupying forces in the city. Quickly becoming a nuisance to Captain Lo (Will Yun Lee, Torque), the prefect of the territory including Spokane, Lo makes it his mission to capture or kill the terrorists calling themselves Wolverines, named after the high school's mascot.

Director Dan Bradley takes several risks by taking on this film. The 1984 Red Dawn was the first film emblazoned with the MPAA's new PG-13 rating. For many, including me, Swayze's Red Dawn was an iconic film mixing a Brat Pack sensibility within the confines of a war drama. In the height of the Cold War/Reagan Era, Red Dawn was one of the last scripts to play on America's fear of the unknown entities behind the Iron Curtain. Swayze, Sheen, Howell, Thompson, and Grey were, or were to become, premiere young actors of their generation - my generation. And in 2009, the film started out with the invading force defined with the Chinese as the evil-doers. But as real world politics came into play in that year with the lending of money and support to the USA, it seemed that keeping the casting of the Chinese as the aggressors was a bad idea. Instead, the studio spent a million dollars to CG out the Chinese and CG in the North Koreans. A better choice, I think. What era did they think we were in, the Cold War? In 2009, North Korea and the Middle East were better villains than the Chinese.

With the risk comes rewards. Bradley takes the script from Ellsworth and Passmore, adds in his own expertise with action and created a relevant film with current ties to real world issues and fears. Communism is still a valid threat in today's world, but the fear of economist collapse is far more real and tangible and has affected many for citizens than McCarthy-ism ever did. The team keeps some of the conic scenes offered up in the original, including Jed staring out at the wilderness with the hood of his sweat jacket up, a classic scene with a fallen deer, and freedom fighters hidden in hidey holes ready to cut down the enemy. The rest the film runs a parallel line to the original plot, both subtle and obvious. The mountains of Colorado are replaced with the wooded hills of Washington state. The battles of the snowy plateaus are replaced with high rise office buildings and a more urban setting. In this version, the Wolverines take the fight to the enemy instead of the other way around.

In general, the story is the same. But the action sequences in the new version plays to the director's strengths. From the initial chase and escape in their Ford F1500 from the North Koreans to each insurgent act the Wolverines attempt and pull off, the 2012 version rocks the gun battles and fight sequences harder than the original. Gone are the 1980's cliche drawn out 'go on without me' death scenes in favor of the quick senseless killings that real war involves. From the fly-over of heavy transport planes dropping paratroopers, to an ending that does NOT involve a monument to the fallen members of the guerrilla soldiers, there is enough new and current content to satisfy the somewhat jaded reboot/remake-phobs.

All being equal, Red Dawn does have a couple issues. First off, the money spent on CGI to mask the Chinese into North Koreans works fine on flags, banners and military equipment, but fails to deliver when the characters, who originally were speaking Chinese with subtitles, are dubbed over with Korean with subtitles. Some may not notice, but I felt like the voice track was off as the words did not match the mouths they came from. Secondly, the enemy in the remake is kept, for good or bad, a more faceless villain. In the original, even the commanders had some heart. In the remake, they are just following orders without compunction.

Red Dawn (2012) is a relevant war drama tailored to the economic and electronic age. With great action sequences, a decent story, some humor, and a bevy of young, hot up-and-coming actors and actresses, this film may never become the iconic classic that the original was, but it is still worthy of a look if you like this type of film. Wolverines!!!!!

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WORTH: Matinee or DVD

The Losers

It's All About Execution

[Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Jason Patric]

Another week comes and goes, and another comic book adaptation comes to the theater. As a huge fan, I am always interested in how Hollywood expresses the genre. Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass" was exciting, if not critically successful. Bryan Singers; "Superman Returns" was slick, if not memorable. Let's see how "The Losers" fared.

SYNOPSIS: The Losers, a group of black ops soldiers, are framed and betrayed by a rogue CIA spook, Max, during a mission. In order to get their lives and reputations back, they must team up with the mysterious operative, Aisha, with her own reasons to bring down Max.

"The Losers" is a DC/Vertigo property that has been selected for silver screen treatment. The trailers make it out to be a fun, explosive spectacle. But the dynamite must have has a bad fuse, because the films fizzles in its delivery. Don't get me wrong, there are some good points in the movie, but not enough to save it.

The casting was picture perfect. For the heroes you have Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the war-weary colonel Clay, Chris Evans as the smart-alec tech specialist Jensen, Oscar Jaenada as the stoic long-range eliminations specialist Cougar, Zoe Saldana as the sultry Aisha, and Idris Elba and Columbus Short as Roque and Pooch. All of the tumblers click into place for a great ensemble, but the story does not do them justice. There are a few memorable scenes. One involves an elevator, a Journey song and a disrobed Chris Evans. Another involves a girls soccer team, a dispute with a referee and Chris Evans. You may think that Chris Evans was the best part of the film. In fact, you would be right!

So even though the players mesh, the story does not. The battle scenes are both loud and lack. The barrage of bullets is intense, but without emotion. The story, by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, moves along briskly but doesn't bring the audience along after the pre-title scenes. Director Sylvain White certainly does not "Stomp the Yard" with this effort.

Another issue is the use of comic book framing. Just as Ang Lee tried to use comic book panels, to develop and segue scenes to ill effect, Sylvain White falls into the same trap. It manages to be both distracting and unnecessary. The illustrated quality works for the closing credits, but fails throughout the film. Maybe a little research into Robert Rodriguez's illustrated effects in "Sin City" would have helped.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I think you can eliminate this film from you movie going list.

Worth: Netflix