Connect with us

Editorials

A Married Woman’s Thoughts On ‘Possession’ (1981)

Published

on

At its core, Possession is an account of a marriage falling apart told in a poetic fever dream. The film is a surreal and unsettling exploration of love, obsession, and madness, featuring powerful performances from its lead actors, Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill.

I was enthralled by Adjani’s performance as Anna, whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic and unstable as she struggles with her own inner demons and the demands of marriage and motherhood. The movie opens with Anna telling her husband Mark (Neill), that she wants a divorce. Mark is confused and hurt, and he tries to win Anna back. He hires a private detective to follow Anna and eventually discovers that she is involved with a grotesque tentacled monster.

Anna and Mark slip into an intoxicating delirium, and it’s impossible to look away as they descend further into madness. Anna’s behavior becomes increasingly disturbed and erratic, and she murders several men to keep her sordid affair with the monster a secret. Mark desperately tries to break the creature’s spell on Anna. He even goes so far as to murder her human lover Heinrich (Heinz Bennent) and pin Anna’s crimes on him.

Needless to say, Anna and Mark don’t make it. Their marriage deteriorates: they both become fugitives of the law, and Anna reveals that the creature has transformed into a doppelganger of Mark.  Mark and Anna die in each other’s arms in a shower of police bullets, and Doppelganger Mark escapes to be with Doppelganger Anna, their son’s schoolteacher. It’s a confusing end to a confusing movie, but its themes are explored in a way that felt validating to me.

Once Possession was available on Shudder, I quickly became a member of its cult following. While revisiting the film repeatedly, I found myself muttering “same” to no one as Anna convulsed and thrashed about on screen.

Advertisement

I see a lot of myself in Anna. She’s independent to a fault, headstrong, and uncompromising, and there are days where “I feel nothing for no one!” And although my transgressions are minor compared to hers, I also fear that one day my spouse will decide they don’t like me anymore.

I’m often told that marriage “looks good” on me. I’m always basking in the glow of my beloved B. (he/they), and I know that those who knew me during my sulking and moody adolescence breathed a sigh of relief when they came into my life.  Our ten years together have brought me so much joy that I’m certain everyone is right.

But I wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t relate to Anna so much if I didn’t give it to you straight: marriage is fucking hard. And as many times as B. tells me I’m “easy to love,” at times I feel as erratic and repellent as Anna.

Mark and Anna are at war with themselves and each other, and the Berlin Wall as a backdrop reminds us that at times marriage can feel like a Cold War. Marriage forces you to be vulnerable in ways you never knew were possible. (I can’t even imagine what fresh hell children will bring!) Being with someone long-term requires enmeshment that sometimes feels suffocating, and I often have to stop myself from pushing B. away.

The reveal of Mark’s doppelganger came as no surprise to me— in fact, it seemed like the natural conclusion. I too see fragments of my spouse in so many of my other loved ones, and although Anna desperately tried to push Mark away, she was bound to piece together a partner that was similar to him.

Advertisement

Marriage is messy, confusing, and complicated—and that’s just me complaining about our taxes. There are days when I don’t even like myself, where like Anna I am the “maker of my own evil,” and I expect B. will grow bored of my behavior and leave.

Even though B. denies the similarities, he is as committed to me as Mark is to Anna. They aren’t as possessive of my time and attention, and they may not be pin-my-crimes-on-my-lover-you-murdered committed, but like Mark, they fight like hell for our marriage and would do anything to make me happy.

As a wife, sometimes I find it difficult to accept  B.’s unconditional love and push aside fears of him no longer liking me when I make mistakes. They put up with my pushing their boundaries on horror, and sometimes understand the nuances of a genre film better than I do. They immediately understood what Anna meant when she told Heinreich that he says “I” for her, while I’m still scratching my head.

Does B. say I for me? No. I am still fiercely independent and am capable of saying I when referring to myself. Are we one entity? Of course, and hopefully forever.

Advertisement

Jenika McCrayer (she/her) is a writer and horror enthusiast based in Brooklyn, NY. Her adoration for the sociopolitical aspects of the genre inform her writing on gender, politics, and education.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Editorials

The Evolution of Black Religion & Spirituality in Horror

Published

on

Jobs for Black actors were scarce in the early days of Hollywood, but that didn’t mean there weren’t Black roles in the films being made. The silver screen had a ceiling for Black actors but not for our culture. White audiences got a gag out of the Black caricatures that white actors portrayed whilst the dehumanizing regurgitation of our culture was used for plot development. Thus, one of the very first Black tropes was born: the magical negro. The early media depictions of Black spirituality were a tool to villainize the community off-screen. Some could say we’ve come a long way since then. I would say we still have a ways to go. The progress is still worth reflecting on, though.

Christianity is one of the largest faiths practiced in the Black American community. But before the missionaries spread the good Lord’s word, most enslaved people aligned with West African religious practices: using herbs, charms, and other metaphysical tools. Tituba, an enslaved Afro-Caribbean woman, was one of the first women accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials— except they identified it as ‘hoodoo’ or Vodou. It was later demonized as the seed that sprouted the uprising of enslaved Haitian people. With these stepping stones (and American imperialism in Haiti), white screenwriters had fuel for a genre on the rise: horror.

White Zombie (1932) is one of the earliest examples of Vodou in horror and, considerably, the first zombie movie. It isn’t the most harmful, though. Black Moon (1934) made history for a few reasons: being violently racist and starring the first Black American actress to sign a film contract. There’s too much irony in that.

The depiction of voodoo in Black Moon, like many other common Black tropes, reinforces black inferiority to their oppressors and makes a monster out of Black men. It wasn’t until 1941 that audiences saw an authentic portrayal of a different Black religion: Christianity. The Blood of Jesus (dir. Spencer Williams) stars an all-black cast and follows a woman on her journey between heaven and hell. It was a turning point for Black cinema as a whole.

Narratives such as this, Def By Temptation (1990), and, most recently, The Deliverance (2024) depict the liberation that Black Christians often find in their religion. They draw a direct connection between identity and virtue. Ganja & Hess (1973), however, takes a different approach. Director Bill Gunn doesn’t offer the Christian God as an entity of power capable of salvation. The ending is representative of the religious guilt that weighted Hess Green (played by Duane Jones). Neither vampirism nor religion can save him from the trauma he’s running from. 

Advertisement

Almost any Black film that I’ve seen, Tyler Perry included, involved Christianity to some extent. 2023 was the first time I saw a Black religious practice given proper respect on screen. Stay with me here– The Exorcist: Believer (dir. David Gordon Green). Rarely have I seen a positive opinion on this extension of the franchise. Unfortunately, DGG left a bad taste in horror fans’ mouths with his Halloween films. I don’t think it’s so much of his style rather than the loyalty that fans have for these franchises. They have high expectations that very few people can meet. I admired the way he represented the beauty of Haitian culture, though. Particularly, hoodoo was an integral part of the story in a way I haven’t seen in mainstream horror. It wasn’t evil nor was it dramatic. The rootwork healer isn’t crushing bones or conducting blood sacrifices. Its authenticity was commendable compared to the genre’s predecessors that have demonized this very spiritual work for decades. 

The late, great Tony Todd added to the list of authentic Black spiritual horror films this past year with The Activated Man (dir. Nicholas Gyeney). Todd stars as a lightworker, named Jeffrey Bowman, who helps the main character defeat an evil, fedora-sporting spirit. He’s dripped out with a rose quartz bracelet and a mala necklace. Though the movie suffers in its respective areas, it’s a tick in the timeline. It’s one of the few times that a Black character has helped to defeat evil with a spiritual practice and faith that isn’t Christianity. Like The Exorcist: Believer, its depiction of Bowman isn’t an unstable practitioner leading with dramatics. It’s easy to get lost in the fine details– some movies won’t live up to our expectations. However, even the most disappointing watch can shift the trajectory of cinema. Where Black characters were once monolithic religious apostles, modern cinema is more willing to diversify Black characters beyond those tired tropes. 

Continue Reading

Editorials

The Art of Politicizing a Dumb Killer Clown Movie

Published

on

“Horror is not political” is a recycled firestorm on the internet. The smoke smells the same as it did before, the burn isn’t that bright, and the outcome is always the same: we’ve done this dance before, and we will do it again.

Damien Leone has joined the club of Joe Bob Briggs and dozens of others who have voiced that very hollow opinion that “Horror is not political”. Because I do, I think above all else, above the very clear negotiation with the part of his audience who got angry, the very clear fear of backlash for actor David Howard Thorton’s admonitions of the current Trump administration and his support for the LGBTQ+ community, is…

Hollowness.

“Horror is not political” is not an opinion.

It’s an absence of opinion. It’s a platitude; it’s meant to appease people. It’s a free dessert for the person raging in the restaurant that their soup was cold and that they won’t stand for it. It’s bargaining.

Advertisement

Are the Terrifier films Political?

Mind you, this is not a call-out of those people angry at the concept of political horror, and I doubt you could call it a call-in post either; chances are you’re not reading this if you feel that so strongly. The goal is to do what I always do: talk about movies and what they mean, and this current firestorm is a very convenient way of doing that. It’s a well-timed way to toast my analytical marshmallow (promise, that’s the last fire metaphor).

So, what are the politics of the Terrifier films that Damien Leone wants to put away while the irate hotel guests are here? The Terrifier movies are political beasts by their nature, and their killer, the beloved jewel of the Terrifier franchise Art the Clown, is just as political as his actor’s commentary on current-day America. Because through and through, Art the Clown is a monster carrying with him the shadow of sexual violence, a harbinger of how truly despicable that kind of violence is, and shows how the world is not set up to help its victims.

And Leone has said as much to support that.

Advertisement

After all, he believes he’s tackled sexual violence quite well in the films. In an interview with Rue Morgue, he goes on to elaborate why he believes just that:

“I think I’m just so comfortable [tackling sexual violence] because I was raised by all women that I don’t think about those things when I’m doing it. […] I’m not trying to offend, so there’s really nothing I’m not afraid to show. There’s things I won’t show; There’s lines that I try not to cross, believe it or not. No matter how grotesque and intense these scenes get, I always keep it in the back of my head like, ‘How far can we push it [..]?’

And I find it fascinating, because no matter how much negative space Leone leaves in terms of explicit sexual abuse on Art the Clown’s part, that negative space speaks just as loudly as if it was actually on screen.

The Politics of Clownery

On a meta-textual level, the extremity, the explosive and sensationalized nature of violence in the Terrifier films, the draw that most people go to see at the theatre, puts sexual violence on a pedestal of shame. It makes it untouchable. Horror is the genre that explores the violation of bodily autonomy, the violation of human life, most freely. In making a spectacle of the wildest and most nauseating kills most filmgoers will ever see, turning the killer into a Bugs Bunny-esque monster that’s always pushing the envelope alongside the filmmaker orchestrating him, and then setting boundaries on what Art won’t do, Leone has made a political statement about the truly reprehensible nature of sexual violence.

Art the Clown is bad, but he’s a surreal type of evil. He is jokes and gaffs at the expense of chainsawing couples and bashing people with spiked bats, not the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes, or the hallway scene from Irreversible. He is not the sobering, disgusting kind of evil most people run into in the real world. He is evil incarnate, sans sexual violence. Because if it’s too far for Art, it has to be a special kind of unthinkably cruel.  

Advertisement

On a textual level, I think the enduring and surreal violence Sienna and Jonathan endure throughout the series is a perfect metaphor for continuing through life after an assault of that magnitude and cruelty. The aftershocks of violence that permeate your whole being, long after society expects you to have just “gotten over it”. To walk through life, afflicted by paranoia, self-doubt, and self-hatred. To navigate being around other people after having experienced that, and more importantly, living without justice for the crimes done to you, is unthinkable.

True Crime and Horror Collide

And the way that the Terrifier franchise mocks a true crime culture that trivializes that suffering, something a lot of horror fans have to decry as the space tries to worm into the horror genre at large, gives another layer of credence and reality to the misery of Arts victims. Victims who have to see their pain commodified and treated as a tool, something many victims of sexual assault themselves have been forced through thanks to true crime.

And despite each film seeming to end off worse than the last, Leone highlights the grace of a victim escaping that pain and trauma by giving Sienna the means to fight back. Supernaturally granted or otherwise, it is a perfect encapsulation of victims’ desires to overcome seemingly unending suffering, that will to live, to thrive, that burns bright in all victims. It’s a glimmer of hope in a mostly hopeless franchise, and it serves as a mirror to the light at the end of the tunnel many sexual assault victims strive to reach.

At the end of the day, artists don’t really get to buy in or buy out of how political their art is, the same way you don’t get to buy in or buy out of living in a political system. Much like Art’s random and unpredictable violence, it sort of just happens to you. It happens whether it’s the high concept art film horror, or what most people see as a bog-standard dumb killer clown movie. But to embrace that political nature is one of the most important things you can do as an artist.

To leave that meaning behind, to try and void art of the political messaging people might find in it, is to do a great disservice to the people who found comfort and joy in that message. Because once that vessel has been emptied of the love people can find in it, the hate people had isn’t going to stay inside of it for long.

Advertisement

That hollowed art won’t be overflowing with a new audience of people. It will simply be empty.

Continue Reading

Horror Press Mailing List

Fangoria
Advertisement
Advertisement