Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Another week goes by, and another sub-standard and unoriginal horror film comes to the fore. The Possession of Michael King is nothing you haven’t seen before and could be one of any number of found-footage horror films released recently.
The story is as daft and predictable as you’d imagine. After his wife Samantha (Cara Pifko) dies after receiving poor advice from a psychic (in an extremely silly, plot-serving incident), militant atheist and amateur documentarist Michael King (Shane Johnson) decides to focus on the supernatural for his next film as a way to disprove the existence of God and the Devil.
He does this by visiting various people and having them perform numerous spells and rituals on him. He begins with the psychic who was partially at fault for Samantha’s death, and from there jumps from scenario to scenario involving all sorts of weird and wonderful people like priests, tarot card readers and necromancers.
Naturally, in the process of reaffirming his own atheism, he becomes the victim of several dark, paranormal forces that are hell-bent on exerting their influence on him.
To its credit, these early scenes are actually the most enjoyable. When Michael visits these eclectic religious crazies, they subject him to a variety of otherworldly rituals that afford the story’s most intriguingly offbeat moments.
But things turn into predictable fare very quickly, as Michael begins to manifest every symptom of possession in the horror playbook.
His eyes turn bloodshot; his mood and temper declines rapidly, the hygiene of his fingernails even quicker. Bugs and locusts invade his house and his body, while, of course, he begins terrorising his young daughter who exists in the story for the express purpose of being terrorised. Literally, all she does is scream ‘Daddy’, cry and run away.
Don’t become too endeared with the family dog either, because, well, that won’t end well.
Debutant filmmaker David Jung seems lost now that he’s in control, resorting to trotting out all the found-footage tropes rather than try and carve his own path in an already oversaturated market that is crying out for fresh ideas.
So yes, expect a plethora of extreme close-ups, night-vision, creepies shuffling around just out of frame, shrieking music welling up on the soundtrack as it slowly zooms in … you get the idea.
The thing is, it just isn’t scary. You know when something is going to jump out, usually because there’s been a couple of fake-outs first before the real demon emerges.
The found-footage format also puts restrictions on the film. Half the time, we’re wondering who is actually behind the camera when Michael is alone in a cellar and losing his mind (because the operator filming it definitely wouldn’t be screaming his head off and getting out of Dodge, right?), and we’re left wondering why, in a bout of crazed possession, would he remember to go and pick the camera up before he goes upstairs to stalk his family?
Yes, glitchy footage that looks like it came from a mobile phone or security camera is still an easy route to making the viewer think it’s real, but it’s confining and leaning on this for a horror story has long since passed its expiration date. The Blair Witch Project was 16 years ago, it’s time for something new.
Another infuriation is the constant swapping between decent and believable digital effects, and B-movie, laughably low-budget efforts. Michael carves pentagrams and other dark symbols into his body while vomiting blood, which is nauseating and chilling in its realism, but then something will burst into flames that look like those torches that used to adorn the central galleria of Seef Mall.
Despite a few bright spots early on, The Possession of Michael King quickly descends into tired and stereotypical nothingness in a genre that really needs a kick up the backside or to die completely.
Personally, I’ll be glad when the Eid offerings are released in Bahrain’s cinemas in bulk next week and I can lock the terrible horror films back in the cupboard under the stairs for another year.
* Showing in Cineco
