The Possession

            Teenagers:  The bane of the movie going experience.  Second only to young children, their incessant noise is difficult to ignore when in large groups.

            PG-13 horror movies:  Teenagers are oddly attracted to them, hoping for a few scares from a film they're legally allowed to watch without adult supervision.

            On Friday, I went to see The Possession.  Since it's produced by Sam Raimi, I wish I had mostly positive things to say.  But just like Santa Claus, wishes aren't real.

            So let's start with the positive: The acting is excellent. 

            Okay, I'm out of positive.

            On to the review!

           

            In  The Possession, Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a newly-divorced father who gets his girls on the weekends.  Of course, mother Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick, whom I will always have a crush on) is a bit of a new-ager, so the kids aren't allowed pizza or junk food, as the youngest has 'allergies.'  Clyde tries his best to be a fun and caring father, but he too often puts his career as a basketball coach ahead of his family.  Hence the 'newly-divorced' part.

            The older sister Hannah is played by Madison Davenport, and she's more or less exactly what I expect from a Hollywood version of a teenage girl.  Her little sister Em is played by Natasha Calis and she brings actual nuance to the movie.  Yes, nuance.  To a horror movie.

            The plot gets going when Hannah makes dad stop at a yard sale, commenting on how he needs new dishes.  While there, Em finds a large, hand-crafted wooden box that she asks her father to buy.  After some horrible, blatant foreshadowing, we watch as Em discovers how to open it up completely by accident, and then we get to the creepy. 

            As the days go by, Em starts to act more and more out-of-sorts.  She even claims that she 'doesn't feel like herself' at one point.  Yes, as good as the acting is, the script tries its best to force everyone down to its level.  As Em gets more and more erratic, Clyde becomes ever-more-concerned.  Finally, he confronts her in an effort to figure out what is going on and, without ruining anything, he ends up losing his joint custody.

            Stephanie, having been privy to none of this, genuinely believes that Clyde has turned into an asshat, but it doesn't stop Clyde from continually trying to help his daughter.  Finally, with the help of a completely random college professor, he learns what the box truly is and who he needs to go to for help.

            Of course, that person is Matisyahu, playing Tzadok, a very kind-hearted Orthodox Jew.  Tzadok takes Clyde and the box to his father, but daddy refuses to help, deciding that it's too dangerous.  Tzadok can't bear to see a child suffer, so he offers his own services. 

            By the time Clyde and Tzadok get back home, Em has been hospitalized due to her erratic and dangerous behavior.  So all that stuff you saw in the trailer?  Yeah, it mostly happens in the last 15 minutes.

            Here's the biggest problem with The Possession.  It doesn't know what kind of horror it wants to be.  It builds slowly.  I mean really, really slowly.  The plot takes its time to develop and reminds you of some of the older horrors like The Exorcist or Poltergeist.  Unfortunately, the scares are nothing more than modern day meh.  Every time you expect a jump, there's a jump.  When you expect the character to do A, they do A.  There are no twists, no surprises, and everything is so neatly laid out that it becomes just another crappy PG-13 horror. 

            What I really want to do is take all these actors and put them in a better, scarier movie.  One that's not afraid to take chances and risk alienating the audience through some bold decisions.  Like maybe actually killing someone you don't expect to die, or at the very least leave some genuine emotional scarring.

            Final verdict?   Save your time and money.  Go rent TheExorcism of Emily Rose instead.