The kids did a sleepover with my parents last night--well, everyone but Baby Kass anyway--so Kris and I decided to watch a horror movie. We watched The Possession, and it was pretty good. I'm not going to hate on it, the acting was all right and there were some scares along the way, but here's the thing: if you're going to make a possession movie, you have to really work hard to reinvent the wheel.
And here's why: The Exorcist. Yes, the scariest movie of all time, and one of the finest horror films ever produced. You can't compete with it. You don't want to be compared to it. It's suicide. There will never be another movie quite like it; in this day and age, there's no way that movie would be released with an "R" rating, and it excels in every category that makes movies worthwhile. Think about it, the direction is brilliant, the acting is off the charts, the effects are legendary, the score is spot-on, the story is epic (please read the book if you haven't already), and the picture is scary as hell. To this day, no horror film bothers me more, and I'm not alone in that regard. Not by a longshot.
I'm not saying we have to close the doors on the subgenre that revolves around people being possessed, but I am saying that you don't want to do anything that requires people to compare your movie to The Exorcist. You certainly don't want to do a lot of things that require people to make such comparisons. You will not win any of those comparisons, no matter how good your picture is.
You have been warned.
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