Review: Possession

By BETSY SHERMAN | November 12, 2012

3.5 Stars

A Cold War of body and soul is waged in this 1981 English-language horror film by Polish director Andrej Zulawski, set in a nearly deserted Berlin. Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill give mesmerizingly out-there performances as a troubled couple trying to hold it together for their young son. It starts with verbal histrionics, then things get weird, and bloody. If you think Adjani's effete older lover (Heinz Bennent) is slimy, wait until you meet the gruesome creature (made by FX master Carlo Rambaldi) holed up in her love nest. Adjani is in full high-strung form here, and Neill is raw and vulnerable as a man who thinks he can survive the madness into which he pursues his wife. Zulawski's camera swirls and prowls through the tunnels, corridors and staircases in which he places his protagonists and those unlucky enough to get involved with them. In this nightmare world, red blood is as cold as the blue light of the German winter.

Topics: Reviews , English Language, Berlin, review, More

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