While a Fair Story ‘Possession’ Fails to Frighten

Written by: Matt Molgaard

Directed by: Joel Bergvall, Simon Sandquist

Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lee Pace, Michael Landes

Possession is one of those trippy little ghost stories that got lost in the shuffle despite arriving before the recent possession craze. That said, Possession really isn’t even about possession… at all. What this one is a sadistic case of identity-searching.

Jess has a lot of good things happening in her life, chief among those things is the love of her life, Ryan. But Ryan can be a little tough to deal with simply because he’s having trouble kicking his brother Roman out of the house. His brother’s a good size guy with a terrible attitude and the look that indicates violence is more entertaining than anything else. One evening after a creepy face-to-face between Jess and Roman, Ryan agrees to kick the man out. But the man overhears their conversation and before we know Roman’s out speeding around and Ryan’s out in a separate vehicle searching for the guy (he’s not too happy with the way his eviction has gone down, so he’s hoping to do a little talking. And then fate comes into play and each brother – driving their own separate vehicles – meet in a head-on collision.

Roman suffers some injuries, but ultimately recovers in speedy fashion. Ryan however, is in a coma, he’s suffered extremely serious head trauma, and the doctor’s aren’t certain he’ll ever wake. And here, at this point in the film where things take an odd turn. Roman appears to – somehow – have swapped minds, personalities, hell, everything right down to daily habits and mannerisms. But is it physically possible that two men, each having flat-lined at the same time, each brought back to life at the precise same moment, thanks to two trusty pairs of defibrillators, could somehow swap personalities, exchange souls?

While I really feel the film’s title is a bit misleading, I can’t deny that the film looks clean. The sound is great. The special effects, though very, very minimal, are quite effective and last but certainly not least, the performers all turn in solid work. That even goes for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who’s never truly been recognized as a special talent. Special talent or not, she rose to the occasion for this production, and it couldn’t have been easy as every last aspect of the film is focused on her character. She’s got to juggle a lot of different emotions, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t pull it off.

The big mystery of the film falls a little short in the originality department, but there are enough technically impresses aspects to the production to help negate that negative slant. It may not be trailblazing content, and it may not be frightening, but it’s a fair effort that warrants at least a single look.

Rating: 2.5/5