I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think that the Chris Sun (Boar) directed The Possessed (not to be confused with The Possessed) may be the first Australian demonic possession film I have seen. This was also somewhat based on real events, or at least the protagonist is based on a real man, Mark Gardener, a man who claims to have the power to expel demons from peoples bodies. Whether that is real or not it is hard to say, but Gardener came up with the story concept for this, and some real footage of his 'clearings' play out during the end credit sequence.
Jacob (John Jarratt - Wolf Creek 1 & 2) is a foul mouthed, yet kindly man who has a special gift. After an accident he discovered he had the ability to 'clear' demonic entities that have latched onto people. He does this with the aid of his nephew, Liam (Lincoln Lewis - Home and Away soap opera). Recently he has noticed that he is being asked to perform more and more clearings, with each one seeming to be harder than the last. Jacob learns of a couple whose house appeared to have previously been the site of a demon summoning, and with the aid of Liam, Liam's girlfriend Atalie (Lauren Grimson - Wyrmwood: Apocalypse), her nerdy best friend Carissa, and gay friend Orion (Jade Kevin Foster), sets out to perform the clearing. What he finds however will prove to be his hardest clearing yet, with a very powerful demon to beat.
If Hallmark made horror movies then I think The Possessed may be what they would come up with. Ignoring the way people act when they are possessed, every single character in the movie is a kindly one, with nearly zero conflict amongst the group of friends. It wasn't really clear where the story would be heading, with an initial prologue that has Jacob exorcising a demon from his wife amusingly explained away as something that he has to do a lot and not actually leading anywhere. In fact, after this prologue, Jacob's wife is never really featured, or even brought up again. The story doesn't even really finish in a satisfactory fashion, instead this had the feel of a pilot episode to a TV show like Supernatural or something, as the film works at bringing the group of friends together, each of which has their own unique skill they bring.
Key to the movie is Jarratt, whose nervous energy really reminded me a lot of John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in the classic British sitcom Fawlty Towers. The way he clears his subject is by a combination of doing this really bizarre hand waving gesture and swearing at the demon, something that came across as really quite amusing. To be fair, from the real life footage of clearings, this is something that Gardener actually does in real life, so they had to include this. It made for some really novel exorcism scenes, ones where religion is only a small factor, with Jacob frequently blaspheming and swearing at his subject. The energy the actor brings to the role created a memorable character, someone who it felt was always making things up as he went along.
The other characters have far less to them, the nerdy best friend seems to only exist to record what is happening, while Orion is pure campy comic relief, with many of his lines said to lighten the mood. They all seemed like nice people, but they didn't feel like real people, more the kind of diluted caricatures you would expect.
There is a screen of text at the start that says something along the lines of the events being somewhat true, yet dramatised for entertainment purposes. This is very apparent as there are a lot of demonic entities encountered here, typically appearing as CG smoke, or as admittedly cool demons. The effects really were not bad and didn't remove me from the story playing out. There is blood and gore, even if this often is revealed to be a hallucination the demon is projecting. There wasn't really ever a feel of any proper threat, people hoping for some type of body count may be disappointed to learn absolutely no one dies here, people barely even get injured, despite some nice looking shots of characters getting flung around rooms.
The Possessed was an entertaining demonic possession film that goes down a more positive route than a horror based one. There is horror here for sure, the whole final act was a particular highlight, but there wasn't really a feeling of peril, it was still enjoyable for what it was. The Possessed is due for release by High Fliers Films on March 20th 2023.
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