The Possession Experiment

Let me start off by saying that I have never seen a more uneven film in my entire life. The movie starts off fairly competent; a girl is possessed, and we witness the events that transpire during her exorcism. The director did a great job giving the scene a nice, gritty aesthetic, with some great shots in and around the house that resembled a stylish music video. Once the first scene is set up, the nose dive in quality is so abrupt, I really have no idea how they could have ruined this movie to such a drastic degree.

After the exorcism, the movie continues in a college classroom, with some of the worst acting by a professor I have ever witnessed. Gone is the music video aesthetic, as the movie now more closely resembles an amateur porn shot on an iPhone 4. There is no more stylized direction, as the movie now takes a more "found-footage" approach of poor direction, even worse acting, and some questionable dialogue that is pulled off with the skill of a community theater reject cast.

The movie jumps between the "possession house" and the school/street several times throughout its run time, and I just can't fathom how the director could be this schizophrenic with his directorial decisions. It almost seems like two people directed this movie; one was talented and did all of the shots inside the "possession house", using creative vision, talent and an understanding of basic horror filmography. The other lacked any such qualities, refusing to showcase any ability or tact, and was tasked to handle any scene not in the house. It was quite jarring when you watch the film and the quality has such disparate highs and lows, and I really wish that the director took a step back and realized that he really should have aimed to have a consistent aesthetic throughout.

Then there is the acting; these people cannot act. The protagonist appeared to constantly forget his lines, the side kick was a joke, and all of the adults had the acting chops of a porn film extra. It was bad. I have never seen a film where bad acting does not immediately ruin the overall experience, but unfortunately, this continues the trend. I really wish that nepotism and friendships took a backseat to actually hiring people who will help you realize your vision. Some people should not be allowed to act, ever. This movie proves this in spades.

Overall, this film has me at a crossroads. On one side, I liked how the film looked inside the house. The creative vision was well realized, and even with the bad acting, it made the movie at least visually appealing. But anything outside of the house was simply horrendous. This movie jumps between being a good B movie to being a horrid D movie too often to get a real, definitive score, so I'll just give it a 5 for the sole fact that I made it all the way to the end without falling asleep. It deserves at least that much.

The title has caught my interest but as soon as the movie started rolling I immediately regretted my decision. Granted, the first scene (the possession scene) was actually quite good but everything that follows is just the exact opposite. The acting in particular can only be described as otherworldly (and not in the positive way). The scene where the protagonist has a "serious conversation" with his mother is one of those scenes that were so bad that I literally cringed. It definitely reminded me of the acting in the movie "The Room".

Other than that the movie definitely had its scary moments. But sadly they were overshadowed by the bad acting performances, I'm afraid.

It appears to me, that at this moment in time, writers and directors are struggling to portray a decent horror story. This is another of those films that should have been much better. Once again it's a nice idea - A theology student decides to do his thesis on Exorcism, though while investigating he has the idea of getting an entity to possess him and then carry out an exorcism online. You know things are going to go wrong, though the main thing that went wrong with this movie was the acting and the directing.

Though, for the opening sequence, which is a flashback with Bill Moseley as Father Mark Campbell trying to exorcise a demon from the body of a woman, it pretty good. I even settled down to enjoy the movie. Not long into the second scene where we're introduced to Brandon Jensen, it becomes evident that the atmosphere previously built up has disappeared. Worst still, it never comes back. It's as if there are two directors working on this film instead of just Scott B Hansen. All the flashback sequences are the best if they'd kept the same grimy dark atmosphere this would have been a better film.

Bill Moseley is, by far, the best thing about this film (shame he's not in it too long), and he outshines all of the other actors. The actors struggle to make their characters believable, even likable, most of the time the come across as flat and uninteresting.

The direction suffers from the hit-and-miss with creating and holding tension as well as managing action scenes credibly. Though I know Hansen can do it, as the flashbacks are evidence to. Not sure why the other sections of the film fail.

Not worth watching unless you're into exorcism and there's nothing on telly.

The opening sequence was actually surprisingly well done. You go in knowing this will be low budget. And after reading the ACTUAL budget they accomplished a lot with what they had. After the first scene the rest looks like it was shot on a cell phone and I couldn't tell if the voices were out of sync on purpose or just my TV. It was slow to the horror after the first scene but the few deaths towards the end were really good. A few things I am very confused/concerned about though: 1) he and his roommate have bunk beds? And his roommate has sex with a drunk girl on his bed? 2) he basically raped the med student but we never see that have repercussions. 3) Why was the house completely empty except the occult stuff and a piano? (Budget cuts I assume). I probably wouldn't RECOMMEND this movie to anyone but it wasn't a heap of trash.

Yet another film that wastes a creepy looking cover and quite intriguing concept. It is also another film that started promisingly but very, very quickly went downhill and never recovered, instead it progressively grew worse. This is coming from somebody who saw it in my "more like this" section when watching some other low-budget films, decided to ignore the rating and only skim through a few of the reviews, having been known to go against the grain.

Even when taking all of this into account, without any prejudice and giving it a proper chance, 'The Possession Experiment' was just very weakly done on most levels and on the most part it does not deliver. Am definitely going to have to agree with the low rating, don't always do with film and television having more than once in the past found ratings here too low, and the mediocre at best reviews (having read them properly just now) that sum up what's wrong with the film very well.

As said above, 'The Possession Experiment' did start off very well and the main reason for not scoring it lower as tempted to. It had genuine tension and creepiness and actually looked pretty good (the only scene really to be so).

The setting has moments of eeriness and the titles sequence was quite creatively done.

Can't say anything else good. The production values rapidly got worse in a jarring shift, with the lighting being far too dim and the photography being wildly disorganised in a particularly under-funded found footage sort of way, some erotic films actually look better. The editing is far too jumpy too with the constant setting shifts being choppy and sometimes confusing. The sound is too obvious and intrusive too often, pet hates of mine when it comes to audio, and the direction also shows signs of disorganisation and not thinking things through.

It doesn't feel like much of a script was written, as it constantly sounds awkward in flow and is woefully under (or should that be un)-rehearsed. The tension and horror is far too fleeting, with hardly anything scary after the opening, and when there is any signs of a story (barely there and it feels padded) it becomes more tedious, more predictable and sillier with each minute, with the sudden and choppy shifts making it harder to follow as well. Didn't find any of the characters interesting or appealing and the acting is horrendous enough to single-handedly wreck the film. The only halfway okay actor is Bill Moseley and he is wasted.

On the whole, good start but everything else is almost beyond redemption weak. 3/10