Burial Ground: Nights of Terror (1981)

Title: Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981)

Director: Andrea Bianchi

Review:

I think I’m a pretty knowledgeable dude when it comes to my zombie movies. Yeah that’s right, I’ve seen a lot of films about the walking dead. I’ve seen the most popular ones like Return of the Living Dead (1985) and all of George Romero’s zombie films. I’ve even seen some pretty obscure ones like Wild Zero (2000), The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974) and The Dead Pit (1989) amongst countless others. But the road to seeing all zombie movies is a long one, filled with many, many bad films. Right now I am trying to see all these zombie movies that I never got around to seeing, most of them are zombie films from other parts of the world like Burial Ground: Nights of Terror which just so happens to be an Italian zombie flick.

Necronomicon Ex-Mortis...loosely translated....Book... Of the Dead!

Burial Ground doesn’t have much of a story. It’s basically the kind of film in which for whatever reason, a group of people end up isolated in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. While there, the living dead begin to emerge thanks to the work of a scientist who is studying what is referred to in the film as “Ancient Etruscan Magical Practices”. The scientist then decides to read the words of a magical scroll that brings the dead back to life. So from there on in, it’s all about people locking themselves up inside of a house trying to protect themselves from the living dead, who are dying to get into the mansion to feast on human flesh. That’s about it ladies and gents. The producers of this film where the same guys and gals who made Patrick Still Lives! (1980) which has the same basic premise of locking people up in an isolated mansion. In fact, I think they even shot this movie in the same exact mansion!

So basically, this movie runs on it’s premise alone, plot is non existent. Having these characters locked up in an isolated location is atypical horror movie behavior; the filmmakers are just giving themselves an excuse to slowly kill off characters in grizzly ways. And that they do well! This film is filled with the kind of gore you can come to expect from an Italian gore fest. Zombies really gorge on human flesh on this one! You can really see them ripping apart flesh and tearing out intestines…the film gets pretty graphic. It’s the kind of gore you’d expect to see in a Fulci movie. Speaking of Fulci, this film is extremely influenced by Fulci’s Zombie (1979). It has a scene in which a zombie grabs a girls head and impales her eye on a piece of broken glass, much like that scene in Fulci’s Zombie. The shots are even freaking identical. Many situations and zombie attacks are taken directly from Fulci’s zombie classic. It also has a bit of the Blind Dead movies because all of the zombies are supposed to be monks from a nearby monastery, ooooh! A plot twist!

This film has many funny things going for it. Same as Patrick Still Lives! Burial Ground is as sleazy as a horror movie can get. You kind of get the idea that this movie is just an excuse to see naked chicks. Hey, just remember, this here film was directed by the same guy who made Strip Naked for Your Killer! (1975) It’s really funny, at one point in the movie, every couple in the film goes to their respective rooms to have sex with each other, and the film switches from one room to the next, from one sexual situation to the next. What’s funny is that they have these beautiful ladies, I mean smoking hot models, having sex with these old dudes, it boggles the mind. During those years, the sex/horror film was extremely popular in Italy and these sleazy producers made them as quick and as cheaply as they could. And they sold ‘em to America! I’m sure this film played just fine on 42nd Street somewhere in sleazy 70’s New York City in a double bill with some ultraviolent Sonny Chiba movie.

In Burial Ground, there’s this couple who have a kid named Michael. The kid looks like a midget, because he is a midget! You see, the filmmakers used a 26 year old midget to play the boy because they knew they were going to be filming scenes involving incest and boob munching. That’s right! I said boob munching! I mean this kid bites a good chunk of his moms breast clean off and chews on the thing! This flick is most famous for that scene and that scene alone! So we have this odd looking kid through out the whole movie! Even worse is the fact that the kid makes sexual advances on his mom even before he is a freaking zombie! Weirder still is that when his mom is suddenly confronted with the fact that her son is a zombie, the first thing she tells him is “feed on my breast! You always liked that!” and she whips out her left breast in front of all the other people (and all the other zombies) this lady just doesn’t give a damn! Her son wants to breast feed in public, so be it! If that’s not entertainment, I don’t know what is. And here I was thinking that Stuart Gordon's Castle Freak (1995) was the only movie in which someone gets their breasts munched on! Burial Ground had done it more then a decade before Castle Freak had.

Something needs to be said about the zombie mayhem in this movie. I mean, these are ultra slow moving zombies, the go at a snails pace, but they are many and they kill their victims in extremely gory ways. They are pretty clever as well! I mean, you ever heard of zombies grabbing a scythe and slicing heads off with it? Exactly! I think this is the only movie on which I have seen zombies using a battering ram! Oh wait, they did that in Army of Darkness (1993) didn’t they? Still, it makes the zombies in this movie look extremely resourceful and intelligent! The make up on the zombies is interesting, and to the films credit, each zombie has a distinctively undead look. I mean, they all look different and varied. Its not the same zombie mask over and over again. Also, this is a movie in which no matter how cheap or sleazy it is, you can’t say you didn’t see enough zombies. The zombies are on screen most of the time, so if it’s zombies you want, its zombies you get with this one. The zombie mayhem is equally non stop. Zombies are always killing someone every five minutes, so it isn’t boring in that sense.

The film ends with a nice little Fulci/Romero homage, or is that rip off? Well, this being an Italian horror flick, Im gonna go with rip off. But in actuality this "prophecy" sounds like a last minute way to try and make some sense out of the whole film. It is called “The Prophecy of the Black Spider” and it appears on screen as the films final shot, notice all the grammatical errors as you read it:

So that’s it my friends, another obscure zombie film seen! Now I need to get my hands on those Tombs of the Blind Dead movies that are waiting for me at home. Expect reviews for those soon! But Burial Ground? An a-typical sleaze bag Italian horror film. I mean, I never saw Fulci’s, Bava’s, or Argento’s films as sleazy. Burial Ground is. In fact, it’s on a whole other level of cheapness and sleaziness in the Italian horror movie pantheon. Don’t get confused, this isn’t a masterpiece at all, but it can make for an amusing (if not completely stupid) evening of zombie movie watching.

Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5

Rebel Without a Crew Book Review

Just got through reading Robert Rodriguez’s Rebel Without a Crew Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player a couple of days ago and decided to write some words on it because I found it to be a very inspirational book for all those indie filmmakers out there struggling to make their own films. For those not in the know, I am one of those struggling independent filmmakers, living for his films. Much like Rodriguez, I write, direct, shoot, edit and occasionally act in my own productions. I consider myself a growing filmmaker, learning a little bit more with every film I make.

Robert Rodriguez, my own personal Jesus

Though I’m confident in saying my acting days are over. I prefer being behind the cameras much more then in front of them. Acting while directing a film can complicate things beyond belief, which is why I stick to directing. I am a self taught filmmaker. I remember a time when I started searching for film schools to go to, but tuition prices quickly shot down that idea. I decided I didn’t want to start life out with more then 100,000 dollars in debt, so I went about learning the filmmaking process on my own. I’d always been making movies since childhood, so I just went with it. Plus, isn’t that wha t they always say? You learn by doing? And that the basics of filmmaking can be taught pretty quickly? I truly agree with these statements! Filmmaking should be learned by making your own films. Actually going out there and shooting your project. When you are a self taught filmmaker you have to learn the tricks of the trade by experience. But also, by reading and researching on your own.

Which is why I had my eye on Robert Rodriguez’s book for a while. Rebel Without a Crew is structured as a diary made up of Rodriguez’s own life experiences, from getting the money for the film (he was a lab rat for a few months!) to getting the equipment (somebody lended Rodriguez a camera!) to shooting the whole thing between Mexico and Texas to following Rodriguez to L.A. in his journey to find a distributor for the picture. It all leads up to this amazing moment when he finally gets to meet with the fellows over at Columbia Pictures, who end up falling in love with Rodriguez and his film. And buying it and funding his next big picture! It’s an exciting moment when he finally “gets there”.

Rodriguez's early days as a filmmaker, shooting El Mariachi

I was living this book as I read it, not only because Rodriguez is a personal hero of mine, but also because I personally go through a lot of the struggles that Rodriguez went through in those early days of shooting El Mariachi. Where he was making a film because he knew he could do it. Just to prove to himself that he could. To prove to the world that he had what it takes and that he knew it.

Working alongside comic book artist Frank Miller, the creator of the Sin City Comics

Making an independent film isn’t easy, but it has its advantages. Like for example, it can be a hell of a lot of fun! Maybe by reading Rodriguez’s book you might not get the impression that making this kind of film can be a fun experience, but trust me it can. When all the planets align, and things fall into place, making a film can be magical. Sometimes getting there isn’t all that easy though. Rodriguez had to sell his body to medicine so he could get funding for El Mariachi. Once the film was shot, Rodriguez spent grueling hours (at the expense of his own health) editing and mixing sound. These experiences show us the true nature of independent filmmaking. It isn’t easy, but it is fun to shoot the film without any real crew, when the creative juices are set wild and free and there is no executive there to tell you not to do something in some way. There’s a looseness to the whole proceedings that cannot be found on a big budget production. Usually, on an independent film, it’s your friends doing the acting. Or whoever can show up on the set that day. It’s your friends holding the boom. It’s a friend helping you with the lighting. It is hard work, but in the end, when you finally get to hear an audience react to your film and you hear them laugh or react in some way, you realize it was all worth it.

Getting his hands dirty, shooting handheld

Rebel Without a Crew’s diary format makes the whole reading experience that much more personal and real. You feel as if you are following Rodriguez and his crew through out the whole process. It gives you an idea of the attitude and mentality an indie filmmaker needs to have when making his first films. And that’s what I enjoyed the most about the book. You see Rodriguez’s attitude, he never gives up. And he is completely driven to achieve his goal. Nothing distracts him on his journey towards making his film! I was not aware that the whole film was shot in just two weeks! Speaks volumes about pre-production and the benefits of knowing your film and having the whole thing pre-visualized in your head before shooting the thing.

Shooting Spy Kids 3-D Game Over alongside Antonio Banderas

So after shooting the whole thing and searching for a Spanish distributor (and almost selling the film to them for a few thousands bucks) we get to the most interesting part of the whole book for me: when Rodriguez finally meets up with the executives at Columbia. From there on in, the book goes at an exhilarating pace; things start happening fast for Rodriguez once the executives actually see the movie and realize he pulled the whole thing off for under 7,000 bucks. Suddenly Rodriguez goes from being a dude who ate a meal a day at Burger King, to getting hotel rooms, and free food and free computers, and being asked what his next project is going to be. Rodriguez went from nothing to the hottest thing in town in the blink of an eye! Coolest thing about the whole ordeal was that he was aiming to sell his indie film to a Mexican distributor, for the Spanish market. He never had Columbia Pictures in mind!

Hanging out with the big guys!

I loved this part of the book because suddenly you can see how Hollywood thinks. They see this little film, and see an angle they can sell with the whole 7, 000 dollar story. And suddenly every studio in town wants Rodriguez to work for them! And I love how he suddenly gets all these offers from every studio in town. It helped me to see the importance of having an agent handling all the legal hassle. The deals, the contracts…wow, it’s all a back and forth of burocracy that any artist would hate. The books shows how Hollywood loves to waste money. For example, when Rodriguez started out, and he was in that limbo between El Mariachi and his next film, he was given a couple of thousand dollars weekly, to survive. But keeping true to his filmmaking style, he never spent the whole amount! Instead he saved it and sent some of it to his family. It’s the same mentality he has with his filmmaking. Making a film cheaply, so you can later maximize on the profits.

A complete film studio in his own home, lucky dude

Though I will admit, I don’t love all of Rodriguez’s films. His fast paced shooting style can either make a picture, or break it. When he is on, he is really fucking on. When he is not, well, we get Once Upon a Time in Mexico. After reading this book, I re-watched El Mariachi, and saw it from a fresh perspective. I saw it and imagined Rodriguez, 23 years of age, shooting this thing with his pals and neighbors. You do see that raw energy in the filmmaking but you can also see some slip ups in the camera work. Yet the film is enjoyable, warts and all because it is still amazing that he achieved it all so well, without having the experience. It’s commendable for that alone. Rodriguez’s modern films are a mixed bunch. I recently re-watched Once Upon a Time In Mexico and was disappointed by it. I guess Rodriguez’s style of shooting a film really quick can backfire as well. You might have that energy, but not much thought put into. The result can be an empty film like Once Upon a Time In Mexico. It says a lot about the content of a movie when the only thing that makes it watchable is Johnny Depp’s performance. But whatever, I guess every filmmaker is entitled a few duds. In my book, Rodriguez still makes fast paced, fun movies. From Dusk Till Dawn? A memorable vampire flick! Planet Terror? An awesome zombie movie! Sin City? Only one of the best comic-book adaptations ever made! And Rodriguez is bigger then ever, he not only directs, shoots and edits his own films, now he produces as well, Predators (2010) being his latest producing endeavor.

Best part of the book is the advice that Rodriguez gives you on making a film. You want to do one? Shut up and do it! You say you’re a filmmaker? Then make your movie! Don’t talk about it. Do it. It’s interesting to see how Rodriguez had to struggle so much to edit the film, especially when we take in consideration that the whole thing was shot on actual film. As some of you may know, shooting on film makes it all the more complicated to edit a movie. On the book, Rodriguez realizes the benefits that modern indie filmmakers have through computers. We don’t need to worry about editing on film nowadays because everything is digital. Editing a film is so much easier these days! With programs like Final Cut Pro, Avid, and Windows Vega anybody can have an editing station right in their own home. All you have to do is save some money to buy the equipment you need to make the thing. Buy a couple of books, read up on filmmaking techniques, editing techniques and you are good to go. Practice by making short films with your friends. If you are also a writer, there are many excellent books out there that can help you get an idea of how a script is done. Indie filmmakers of today have no excuse! Maybe you won’t get to Hollywood, but then again who knows, maybe if you want it bad enough you will. There is always the pleasure of showing the film amongst your community and friends, Be Kind Rewind style. Anyways, in closing, Id like to say that if you are a filmmaker, then this book will serve as inspiration and will motivate you to get that project you have in mind of the ground. Heck, I'd say it should be required reading for any aspiring filmmaker. Read it, get yourself pumped, and best of luck with your film! Get those cameras rolling!

Predators (2010)

Title: Predators (2010)

Director: Nimrod Antal

Cast: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace

Review:

Many moons ago, when Rodriguez was directing Desperado, and his career was in diapers still, he wrote a script called PREDATORS. The studio rejected it because it was deemed too expensive at the time. Fast forward many successful films later, and many millions of dollars at the box office and the studio unearths Rodriguez’s script and decides they want to have him resurrect the Predator franchise. Cool thing is that Rodriguez now has his own production studio (Troublemaker Studios) and makes his own movies in his own way. The studio offers him the option of making the film with Troublemaker Studios, in this way giving him and his production crew the freedom and liberty to make this Predator movie in their own way. That is how Predators the film I will be reviewing today, was born.

The film tells the story of a group of individuals who are hurled into this strange planet that resembles earth, but isn’t. They literally wake up while free falling down to this planet! Good thing who ever hurled them down gave them a parachute! And good thing these guys know how to use it. Once down on the planet, they explore their surroundings and ask themselves how they got there. It’s not just every day that you wake up free falling towards a strange and exotic planet with more then one moon. As they explore their jungle like surroundings, they realize that they are being watched, and quite possibly hunted! Turns out this planet is the Predators own private wild life preserve where they raise the creatures that they hunt. Will the humans find a way off this god forsaken rock?

What we got here ladies and gentlemen is a sequel that completely respects the original. So much so that it practically plays out exactly the same way that the original Arnold Schwarznegger film played out. A bunch of tough guys in the jungle running from an invisible creature that hunts them. Some scenes are almost too similar, like those where the guys find dead skinned bodies, scenes where everyone is terrified that there might be something looking on from behind the fauna. And of course, the scene where everyone goes batshit insane wasting amo, shooting at ghosts. So expect lots of similarities with the first film.

Testosterone Overdose coming right up! The tough as nail cast of the original Predator (1987).

Of course, the filmmakers were going to give us some familiarity with this new film. They want us to connect, via our collective nostalgia, to the first film. Let’s face it, if you were a kid through the 8o’s chances are you went to see this movie to the theaters. Or at least saw it at least a gazillion times on VHS or on cable. Schwarznegger films had reached an apex by the time PREDATOR was released in 1987. Schwarznegger was king of action films back then, and this movie took him up a couple of notches in that department. The original was a film for guys, about guys. If you notice, the cast was made up entirely of tough hombres. Cigar chomping, muscle bound, military killing machines. Besides Arnold, the original films cast was made up of a who’s who of tough guys: Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers and a couple of other tough looking actors. Heck, it was a film produced by king of macho action films Joel Silver, so this film was bound to be a testosterone overdose from the get go. In fact, the original film was such a guys film that the only female presence in the film was a scared native girl they find while investigating the jungles of Guatemala. She is terrified of the creature, but she’ll be alright, she’s got all these tough dudes to protect her! Keeping in line with all the similarities to the original, on Predators we also get a female thrown in the mix played by Alice Braga. The update is that she’s not a scared and horrified girl waiting for the tough guys to protect her; she’s actually a kick ass war torn chick who knows how to handle herself. And a machine gun!

This one is a bit different in that the guys in this film are not addicted to going to the gym everyday to pump iron. On this one we have mostly guys, yeah, but they are a bit more vulnerable. Let’s face it, Adrien Brody isn’t exactly the embodiment of tough looking dudes, he has a more vulnerable looking physique, though I think that helps the story a bit. He isn’t this indestructible looking tank like Arnold. But to Brody’s credit I will say that he did apparently work out to toughen himself up for this role. Topher Grace is also thrown in the mix, and he isn’t so tough looking either. Actually, he plays a doctor! We get a Chinese guy with katanas, and finally, I think the toughest dude on this movie is Machete himself, Danny Trejo. So we get an assortment of tough yet vulnerable dudes to go up against the beasts.

The big difference in this film is that we get more Predators. Hence, ‘s’ at the end of the title. I really liked something about this movie and it’s that we have two warring Predator factions, the younger vs. the older ones. In one awesome sequence we get the older Predator fighting against the older one, and the older one looks exactly like the Predator on the original 1987 film! A great nod to Stan Winston and his work in designing the original beast. The new predators that show up in the film are interesting as well. Kudos to the guys at KNB FX (headed by now make up effects legends Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero) for outdoing themselves once again with yet another batch of excellent make up effects creations. These guys have never disappointed me with their work, and Predators is no exception.

The KNB FX guys give a nod to Stan Winston's original creature design on this new film

This wasn’t the best Predator film ever made; the story feels like it needed a little something extra to make it fully tick. I mean, I didn’t like the fact that they changed the focus from having the Predators be the main threat to having some of the humans become the threat. The main focus of the original was the human vs. the monster. On this one, the film plays out more like CUBE (1997), where we lock a bunch of humans up in one place and see which one shows his evil side first. The story wasn’t as epic or as important as I would have liked for it to be, but we owe that to the studio. They deliberately wanted a smaller film, to test the waters, see how much the audience wants another Predator film. I guess people do want another one, the film went on to make 126 million worldwide. But whatever, I didn’t hate this Predator film which is a good thing. I mean, at least it wasn’t a complete disappointment like Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (2004) was. Let’s just hope that future films in this franchise improve. Rodriguez himself said that the story can go any number of directions, let’s hope they decide to take things in a more epic direction. There is hope in Rodriguez’s own words: “the bigger movie would actually be what comes following that. Then you can really go crazy from there”. Let’s hope the next film lives up to those words!

Rating: 3 out of 5

Possession (1981)

Title: Possession (1981)

Director: Andrzej Zulawski

Cast: Sam Neil, Isabelle Adjani

Review:

There are only a handful of filmmakers out there who are willing to take the route of the truly bizarre. To be this kind of a filmmaker, the kind that makes films that can be considered truly bizarre, and outlandish, films that don’t adhere at all to the rules that Hollywood plays by, you have to be a filmmaker with real conviction. Studios will not want to give you money to make your film because of the simple fact that your movie will probably be something that will be considered a hard sell. And a film that a studio doesn’t know who to sell it to is something they don’t want. They want to know exactly who this movie is aimed at, so they can start working on that marketing campaign right away. Possesion is that kind of unorthodox film. It is so strange, so weird, and so bizarre, that it will only find life in the festival circuit or in the art house theater. And honestly, that’s just fine by me because at least that way we at least get to see this kind of film. Films that shock and titillate but at the same time have a brain. Though I’ll be real honest here, there are times in Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession where you wont know what the hell is happening, because this is a film that Zulawski made for himself, to exorcise his own demons. You see, Zulawski made this film while in the middle of a divorce. In all honesty, this is one of the most crude and truthful attempts at capturing those last moments in a relationship when one of the members decides they simply don’t want to be with the other. The love, the lust is no longer there anymore.

The film tells the story of Mark and his wife Anna. They have been separated for some time, but for whatever reason, they apparently have decided to get back together. To see if they can work things out for the sake of their son. Turns out things aren’t working out at all. Anna doesn’t love Mark anymore. Naturally, Mark thinks that she has been unfaithful to him even though she flat out denies it. He doesn’t believe her, so he sends a private investigator to follow her and see what they can uncover. As they say, sometimes some things are better left in the dark. This movie really shook me because I personally went through a break up recently after a relationship of many years. I’d like to think that I went about the whole ordeal in a rather adult manner, without any unnecessary drama. I mean, I figure if things aren’t working out, then why force it you know? Sometimes love just dies, people change, feelings change. I understand that. You just have to learn to move on with your life, my advice is this: life rarely stays in a stand still, things are always evolving. What you think will be one way forever; will probably end up changing drastically; if you ask me, that’s just the nature of the beast as far as life goes, you just have to learn to adapt. Or live a tortured life, whichever you prefer. But on this film, Sam Neill’s character doesn’t learn to adapt very well. He doesn’t take the idea of a divorce very well at all.

In fact, what I saw in Mark is what I never want to be ever! Mark is a guy who completely looses it when confronted with the idea of a break up. So much so that he seems to go completely crazy for a while. And I mean completely whacko batshit insane! In this way, Possession seemed a lot like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), where we have a protagonist who we follow through the whole film, but unfortunately we have to see them disintegrate into madness. Same as Polanski did in Repulsion, Zulawski uses odd camera angles to demonstrate Mark’s dementia. Speaking of Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani’s performances, I have to applaud both of them; they truly portrayed a couple who deals with divorce in the most childish and out of control way possible. I guess in this way Possession serves as a mirror to what we should never succumb to should we ever face this kind of situation. And lets face it, chances are that if you life in this world, you will face a heartbreaking breakup at some point in your life. See this movie before you go through one, you will want to deal with things in a more humane and controlled manner.

But Zulawski’s films are never about control. In fact, they are always about going overboard. About excess. This is the reason why I compare Zulawski with Ken Russell, another filmmaker who thrives in depicting human excess in his films. In both of these filmmakers films, characters succumb to the darkest and most depraved sides of human behavior. On Possession, characters don’t want to behave in the correct way; they behave diametrically opposite to what is considered normal or proper. They go all the way crazy and wrong. Not only do they behave incorrectly in regards to their break up, we also see Mark and Anna’s child being neglected because they are so self centered and selfish. They are only thinking about their own emotions and their own state of mind, they are so self centered that they forget that they have a child living with them. This is a very interesting aspect of the film and one that follows the characters all the way through out the development of the story. We get to see the child’s side of the story and how he is affected by the situation the parents are living through. I found it interesting how more then once in the film the kid hides underwater, as if to escape the horrible situations he is living through. His parents fight, scream and even physically attack each other, most of the time completely ignoring the child.

Both actors outdo themselves; I’ve never seen Sam Neill act so crazy on any film. But it seems like Zulawski wanted the characters to purposely act like they were high on something all the time, because there are very few moments where the characters act in a way that can be considered ‘normal’. The performances on this film aren’t to be considered realistic in any sense of the word, they are enhanced, like human emotions on crack; running wild and without restraint. The only time they act in a normal fashion is whenever they face society, but when they are alone with themselves inside of their apartment, their ugly side surfaces and then, this ugly side is the only side they show each other. Isabelle Adjani won the best actress award on both the Cannes Film Festival and the Cesar Awards, and when you see this film you’ll see why. There is this one scene that demonstrates how feelings and emotions can make you blow up in anger, and make you completely loose it. Anna completely looses it in one moment of the film, so much so that it feels like she is possessed, hence the films title. The scene is grueling and long, but it makes an impact. It’s one of the most memorable sequences in the film. I say one of the most memorable ones because there are other sequences that will leave you shocked as well.

Possession is a film that takes every angle about a break up and analyzes with a magnifying glass. It explores that feeling of insecurity one might feel when faced with the possibility of the break up coming as a result of infidelity. Mark doesn’t believe Anna has been faithful, so he goes out of his way to find out the truth. It asks the question: do you really want to know the truth? If you ask the director of this film that question, he will tell you that no, you don’t want to know the truth. Mark keeps digging and digging until finally, he comes face to face with the reality of the situation. What Mark faces at the end of his search embodies how Zulawski sees that third person that can make its way into a relationship and completely destroy things. And this is where the cosmic horror of the film comes into play, and where a lot of people adhere H.P. Lovecraft influences on the film. I don’t want to give too much away for anybody, but I salute Carlo Rambaldi for contributing some truly excellent make up effects work on this film! Rambaldi’s contributions to this film make for one of the most memorable images this film has to offer, and one of the most shocking ones. By the way, these scenes involving tentacled creatures, suddenly give the film its horror angle. For the longest time, the film feels like a bizarre film about relationships, but it isn’t until we hit the creature angle that the film earns its horror badge. It reminded me a bit of David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1978) in a way. In Eraserheard David Lynch compared an unwanted child to a horrible disfigured creature that caused nothing but discomfort and problems, in this way hammering home the message that if you don’t want to be a parent, then don’t, because it can be a nightmare to have a child and not be ready for that responsability. In Possession, Zulawski does the same, but dealing with the issues of infidelity. Giving the attributes of a monster, to the cause of the pain.

Closing words: this film is not only an exploration of the issues of divorce, and disintegration of a relationship, it also explores love triangles, the way a man feels when he is rejected, and the insecurities involved. In one scene Mark gets annoyingly inquisitive about the reasons why Anna wants to leave him. It explores the way a woman feels when she is between two men and the toll that a love triangle can take on a persons sanity. The way the female feels when faced with violence from men. And it even touches upon themes of the existence of god, and the inevitability of death. At one point Sam Neill’s character practically defies death at every turn, looking for the fastest way to die. An amazing movie! A word of warning though, it is a film that is not easy to digest. It is heavy on symbolisms and its hyperbolic style might seem a bit too harsh for some viewers. But if you like bizarre cinema as I do, and if you like excess in your films, then don’t miss this electrifying picture.

Rating: 5 out of 5