Hello there, and welcome again to another Marvelous Videos horror video. We have got a very fascinating horror story for you today. Is this a love story, a revenge story, or just a case of pure obsession? After watching a woman fall in love with one guy after another, you can figure it out for yourself.
We have an odd film for you today that is full of psychological terror and drama. Possession, which was released in 1981, is the answer. It is the only picture by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski that is in English, and it is brilliantly directed by him. Zulawski and Frederic Tuten collaborated on the script. There will be a lot of frightened cries as a result of the amount of blood and gore in this picture.
The film is essentially the narrative of Mark and Anna’s romance. But wait, that is not the only intriguing aspect of the movie. It just so happens that a creature is engaged in their tragic love story as well. In addition, the film was shot in West Berlin in 1980.
Throughout the plot, Possession creates a great deal of anxiety for the audience. It spends a significant portion of its length establishing all of the fantastic ensemble members before transitioning to more horror and tragedy-focused ending sequences. The reveal of the monster is exciting, but what happens in the film as it progresses will leave many of us stunned.
We know you are itching to find out what, how, and when this creature will alter the course of the movie. So, without further ado, stay watching as we explain how the events in the movie unfold.
She created a monster as her secret lover! – Possession (1981)
So, in the film, Sam Neill plays the role of Mark, who is a spy who has returned home to West Berlin from a secret mysterious mission. And guess what, Sam Neill has apparently said that Possession is his personal favorite of all the films that he has been in. So, after arriving home Mark finds out that his wife Anna, played brilliantly by Isabelle Adjani, is being really distant and she wants a divorce. Trouble in paradise you might think, but maybe it was not all paradise, to begin with.
Well, Mark tries to figure out what has happened and what did he do wrong, but Anna would not say a thing. In fact, she keeps insisting and it is not because she has found someone else. Through all the headaches at home, Mark finally finds out that Anna is having an affair with a guy named Heinrich. So, in anger, he decides to give the apartment and his son Bob’s custody to Anna. Bob is played by Michael Hogben.
So, after spending days and nights on a drunken rampage at a Motel, Mark finally goes back home. And guess what, Bob is all alone there and it looks like Anna has clearly not been at home ever since he left. Looks like the fatherly love in him returns because he is going to stay. It is not long since Anna came back that she suddenly goes away in the middle of the night. Now, obviously, Mark assumes she went to go see Heinrich.
The day after, Mark meets Bob’s teacher, Helen, who looks oddly very similar to Anna but has green eyes, while Anna has blue. Later Mark finds Heinrich and of course they both fight. Back at home, he beats Anna when she tries to leave. They have yet another violent argument the very next morning, where both of them end up cutting themselves with an electric knife. Anna on the throat and Mark on the arm.
This couple really needs to go to some major therapy sessions. And this is not the most insane thing that either of them has done. Wait until what comes after!
Now, Mark hires a private detective to track Anna down and finds out that she has a second flat in a different apartment building. So, the detective tries to get a look at what is Anna hiding there, and then happens the big reveal. He discovers a strange tentacled creature in the bedroom. Then of course Anna ends up killing him with a broken bottle.
Zimmerman, the lover of the now-dead detective, in order to find out why is he missing, goes to the flat. Even he sees the same creature as well as his lover’s dead body. Want to take a guess at what happens next? That is right, Anna steals his gun and shoots him to death.
Okay, this just took a wild serial killer turn. What is up with this woman suddenly killing everyone. It is obvious that she is protecting the creature.
Well, her strange, almost obsessive behavior still continues at home, and she tells Mark about a miscarriage she suffered in the subway while he was gone. The screams you hear in this scene, and the pure agony she is going through. She even oozed a lot of blood and fluids during this unfortunate incident. We have to give it to Isabelle Adjani for the way she brilliantly and bravely acted in this scene.
In fact, Rosamund Pike re-enacted this subway scene of Adjani in the music video of Massive Attack’s “Voodoo in my Blood”. And you will also not believe that there is a sample of the screaming from the subway scene which is included at the end of PoesieNoire’s song, “Pity For The Self” (1989).
So, later Heinrich decides to visit Anna in her second apartment and it is terrifying what he found there. You are going to be absolutely shocked. He saw the creature in her bedroom of course, but apparently, there were a whole bunch of decapitated body parts in her refrigerator. Heinrich quickly runs away after she attacks him.
Well at least someone did not die this time. Anna sure brings blood with her where ever she goes. Oh, but Heinrich’s fate is not quite saved yet. Wait until you find out who is after him now.
It seems Mark wants to save Anna somehow. So, he murders Heinrich, stages it as an accident, and then sets Anna’s second apartment on fire. After going back home, he finds the dead body of Margie, who is Anna’s friend. Clearly, a lot of deaths are happening in the film at this point.
Whatever this creature is, looks as if it has a pretty close connection with Anna. Now, when he goes to Margie’s apartment, there are a lot of cops there. And it looks like Mark is trying to create a diversion, maybe to help Anna at that moment. But he does end up getting shot in the leg by the cops. He still manages to run away though on the motorbike and ends up inside a building where there is also Anna. The cops are of course still after them.
Oh, the major twist is just about to happen. Get ready for what you are about to see on your screens. We get a clear look at the creature now, who has apparently fully transformed into Mark’s doppelgänger. Soon after a not-so-happy ending happens for Mark and Anna because Anna is killed by the cops. And Mark jumps through the stairwell, killing himself.
Now, if you were wondering where has Bob been all this while. Well, he is with Helen who is babysitting him. The doorbell rings and through the silhouette that we see, it looks like the doppelganger Mark has arrived.
The film ends in the most bizarre way possible. Even though Bob literally begs Helen to not open the door, she does it anyway. Does suicide run in this entire family? Because looks like Bob decides to drown himself in the bathtub after the doppelganger arrives. We can sure see his body floating there, face down.
Well, nothing really happens after. We see Helen staring, and her green eyes shine. And that is it, curtains down folks, the film has ended. We know none of you would have imagined that this is how the weird and bloody relationship between Mark and Anna would end. It is possible to say this is an amazing horror love story where we kind of see everything except actual love.
Comment down below, what you think it was, possibly love or just a strange obsession. Well, don’t you want to find out what the creature actually was all about? Let us get right into it.
The Monster You Desire
When we say the word “desire”, we do mean it quite literally. Because the creature from Possession is definitely one such creature that will haunt you for life. So, remember how Anna would act so obsessive about her lover, to the point where she totally seems like a crazy person. I mean she sort of even went to the lengths of killing herself when Mark did not let her go to him.
Well, this is it. This monster is who she has been sleeping with. That is pretty damn creepy, right? After all, it is the monster she so desperately desires. And this is probably going to come as a shock to you, but actually, Zulwaski was writing the screenplay for this film during the divorce he was going through at that time with actress Malgorzata Braunek.
Definitely have to give it to Zulwaski for bringing to life this intense creature design. It is almost serpent-like and very horrifying. What is even more disgusting about the creature is all the humanoid character traits it possesses.
It is a rather extremely sad and depressing film which is evident through the character of Anna and also what the monster represents in the film. It is essentially all about the failed marriage of Mark and Anna. So, like a metaphor, Anna’s internal guilt, pity and unfulfilled sexual desires have taken the physical formation in her external world.
Through the start of the film, it is pretty obvious that she was having issues with the constant absence of Mark. Now, imagine having to suffer the trauma of that deadly miscarriage all alone. It clearly left a lot of mental scars for Anna and we can see her mental state going down rapidly throughout the film. So, it is as if the creature was born because of everything Anna has gone through. And at first, it is a literal manifestation of what her mind is like.
The monster eventually transforms into an exact carbon copy of her husband, this is her idealized version of Mark. So, now the monster has become everything that Mark could never be. Even Anna’s doppelganger occurs in the form of Bob’s school teacher Helen. Remember how shocked Mark was when he saw Helen for the first time. Now, the reason why he liked the constant interaction with Helen was also that she is the idealized version of the wife Anna could never be.
It is kind of fantastic how Zulwaski ended up forming the creature. At first all he had was the idea of how he wanted it to look like, and where and what he wanted it to do in the film. It was through the genius of Carlo Rambaldi that the actual creature came to our screens in the film. Almost instantly he understood what Zulwaski wanted out of it.
We already know the fantastic job he did with it, because come on, all of the horror fans here have to agree that this is a creature you will not be able to forget about. Just try getting it off your mind once you finish watching the film.
It is because of this creature, and all the blood and gore in the film that ended up making it was banned in the UK and heavily censored for its US release. Although it was only initially that Possession was banned in the UK as a “nasty video ”. The BBFC did, later on, approve its release in around 1999.
Oh, and guess what, when the renowned Polish film critic BogozlavMikhaelish first read the script for Possession, he strongly recommended Zulawski to just not show the monster on screen. Clearly thank God the director decided to ignore this advice. As gory and ghastly as the monster showed up to be, it did give us an excellent creature feature. Might as well watch it and let it scare you, right!
Along with the creature being the nastiest part of the film, it was for sure Adjani’s brilliance as an actress that was also the centerpiece of the film. In fact, won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981 for her performance in the role of Anna. That was well deserved indeed. As Sam Neill himself said, Possession definitely is the most extreme film to have been made.
So, what are you waiting for, go right ahead and watch this psychological body horror film. And then comment down below what you thought about the creature. Well, with that, guys we have come to the end of yet another video with extreme horror content. We hope you liked watching the video. Make sure to hit that like button and click on subscribe on your way out. We are going to keep bringing more such amazing videos to you because we know you love watching them. Till then horror buffs, stay safe and have a great day ahead.