Possession from the '80's

POSSESSION-1981-This is a crazy kind of horror movie that starts out like a Bergman film with lots of soul searching dialogue and over acting. 

Sam Neill (talking like James Mason; it might be his real voice) is Mark, a businessman who returns early from a trip and learns that his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani, who was in Herzoz's NOSFERATU remake 2 years before) is having an affair. At first Mark seems to be the only one who is unable to cope. He rants and attacks Anna in a restaurant where 2 waiters and 2 cooks have to subdue him. Later he grows a beard and has convulsions. He visits their son and acts weird while rocking in a rocking chair. He very aggressively tries to make her stay with him but that fails. 

When he drops his son off at school he meets the teacher Helen who resembles Anna (Adjani in a dual role). He later confronts her German lover Heinrich (Heinz Bennent, also in films by Truffaut and Bergman), a touchy-feely oddball who won't button up his shirt but he bloodily beats up Mark. Later Anna cracks up, screams, laughs and Mark beats her up! 

She runs out in the street with blood dripping from her mouth and causes an accident. After Anna's dopey friend Margit (Margit Carstensen) shows up and says things like “I love seeing you miserable”, Mark visits a private investigator. It's obvious something is going on with Anna that doesn't involve Mark or her lover. Anna and Mark have a weird discussion in the kitchen while Anna is grinding meat. 

Meanwhile the detective trails Anna to a seemingly abandoned building but Anna kills him when he discovers something strange in the bathroom. Amid more talking, soul searching and fighting it seems Anna is the possessed lover of a slimy tentacled demon (created by Carlo Rambaldi). 

Some might call POSSESSION an art house horror film and go crazy for the over the top acting and Bergman like close-ups and dialogue (I've also read it's an allegory for divorce) but personally I think the director Andrezj Zulawski was having fun with the “art house crowd” and this is a horror parody. The characters act too strange to be taken seriously (especially Adjani's stand-out freak out scene in the subway where she vomits and menstruates and the scene where a demon actually screws her) and most of the killings are comical. 

Neill was the grown up Damien in OMEN lll: THE FINAL CONFLICT the same year. The Polish born Zulawski's next film THE DEVILS (not a horror film) was banned in his homeland. On the commentary for the DVD of POSSESSION he claims Adjani (who won France's equivalent of an Academy Award for her performance) tried to commit suicide after watching the film (I couldn't blame her actually...).

Thanks for reading!