Review of The Possession of Michael King (2014) by Andrey T — 19 Sep 2014

Since The Blair Witch Project mockumentary horror movies are getting more popular every year. Today documentary is part and parcel of the horror and both of them likely guarantee box office hits. Here are overt reasons of the tendency: mockumentary is the best way to impact through the prism of reality. Simple HD camera is able to help achieve this effect. And it's cheap and easy, especially for debutants such as David Jung, director of the new horror mockumentary The Possession Of Michael King.

The story goes about a handsome widower named Michael King living in the City of Angels, who doesn't believe neither in angels nor in demons, atheist in brief. Once upon a time driven to anger after death of his wife he decides to prove that religion and black magic are both no more than opiate of the masses and of course he sets a goal to make a film about that. He takes his camera on and starts experiments with his body, mind and soul. We follow him through interviews with weird people calling themselves demologists, necromancers and exorcists. Michael wants to prove the absence of God and Evil in a strange way - by submitting himself to terrible satanic cults and ridiculous rituals of demon evocation. Drugs and body cuts seem to be funny and Michael grins. At the beginning our hero treats all his experience sarcastically making us sure that spiritual powers are really bullshit. You do believe his reasonable arguments until first indications of Michael's possession by an ancient demon... And it ain't funny anymore.

The movie is not original. During the run of the picture you might conjure up many horror films from your childhood. The picture itself from soup to nuts represents a collage of the classic horrors you know. Here are references to the movies like Chainsaw Massacre or Exorcist. It's not a secret the last one is a stem of almost all devil-in-body movies for the last 40 years. But The Possession absorbed all well-known clichés up to the finale. And it's the greatest weakness of the whole project.

Though the picture has many exploitation moments that may sicken you or even make you close your eyes for a while. Jung doesn't apply galore special effects. At least you don't meet any monsters and other ghastly creatures. He just tries to thrill with sounds, visual distortions, crazy Michael's monologues on his camera and levitation around the room at times. But all these tricks are less impressive than the perfect performance of Shane Johnson. His acting scares more than even bloody hand hanging from the ceiling in the child's room. Johnson's character goes through all stages of mental and physical degradation in the way you can feel with you skin. Any other characters have no values. All of them including the dog are just prey or rascals like the priest who refused to help possessed Michael.

The Possession of Michael King is good to watch with friends for once only. Scary thing to refresh your memories of all you have seen before. Will they watch Jung's movie in a year or 10 years? What life expectancy do such found-footage films have in general? Let's take a breath and wait till another one. But now you should learn the lesson - never play with the devil.