exploitation, and heavy on the exploitation. I mean, people lined up to see the thing because they’d heard about Regan’s potty mouth (literal and figurative!), the crucifix masturbation (funat parties, not that I’ve tried it, no), and spinning head (that I’ve tried!!!). It wasn’t the power of Christ that compelled you, but gore, baby, gore! You *Karen wags her finger* shouldn’t be surprised that the lukewarm parade of PG-13 possession movies of the 2000s never came close to approaching the critical or popular successes of The Exorcist. The Exorcist was a wildly popular event horror film, and one that, unlike its politically progressive/transgressive, indie counterparts ( Night of the Living Dead, Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ), just happened to be one of the most conservative horror movies ever. Good vs. evil! Yay, good! The pure, pristine little white girl saved by white men and religion! Yay, white men and religion! All you need is love faith! The triumphant return of the status quo! Family values! Heroic middle-classers battling a foreign boogeyman (the demon Pazuzu was literally a brown-skinned foreigner first glimpsed by Father Merrin in the movie’s opening in Iraq)!
Yes, much of The Possession follows the urtext of The Exorcist and that of other horror films. At times, the reenactment’s obviously brazen sameness to classic scenes strikes an innate cultural chord (yeah, I’m making that shit up as I go, sounds good though) within us, and in a weirdly reassuring way authenticating what we’re seeing. Other scenes are clever and even subtle enough in their deviations from their antecedents to somehow feel new again. Or their antecedents are obscure enough to feel new, or new enough. Yeah.
Let me break down a bunch of the reenactments:
—Marjorie stands over Merry’s bed, hovering over her sister, which clearly recalls the found footage is-it-a-haunted-house-or-demon-possession movie? Paranormal Activity . Both camera angles and lighting are similar. Marjorie is dressed just like Katie, wearing boxers and a tight T-shirt. ThePossession spices up the simple dread of hovering over a sleeping loved one with Marjorie pinching her little sister’s nose shut. It adds a layer of sadism that’s subtle and hints at possible greater acts of violence.
(aside 3: Yeah, more politics. Sorry. But it’s just so there and waggling in our faces!!!! The reenactment actress playing Marjorie, Liz Jaffe, was no fourteen years old. She was twenty-three and looked it. Marjorie was still a kid. Miss Jaffe was not. Liz had similar hair color, skin tone, etc., to Marjorie, but she was obviously more physically . . . cough . . . mature. She wore makeup, tight clothing, and in the masturbation scene, no clothing, but oh, she had on a few digitally blurred pixels to protect the poor audience from her nasty lady parts . So, yeah, “the male gaze” [please see Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”] is in full effect in The Possession at both extremes. The camera ogles a sexualized Liz Jaffe whenever she’s on screen. When the real Marjorie is eventually on screen [at the end of the pilot and in the following episodes], she’s ogled in a different though no less demeaning way. Real Marjorie is an object to be observed, but never too closely as we the voyeurs might find she’s a real teenage girl and actually begin to be concerned for her mental health and general well-being. John Barrett represented the valiant struggle of patriarchy in our decaying, secular, postfeminist society, and Marjorie was the withering object of the camera’s male gaze.)
—Marjorie projectile vomiting all over her family as they watched Finding Bigfoot (psst, they never found her!) in the living room was an obvious nod to The Exorcist . Maybe not so obvious, this scene is so over the top in its gastric viscera, it recalls the spewing geysers of blood and goo from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies
Yes, much of The Possession follows the urtext of The Exorcist and that of other horror films. At times, the reenactment’s obviously brazen sameness to classic scenes strikes an innate cultural chord (yeah, I’m making that shit up as I go, sounds good though) within us, and in a weirdly reassuring way authenticating what we’re seeing. Other scenes are clever and even subtle enough in their deviations from their antecedents to somehow feel new again. Or their antecedents are obscure enough to feel new, or new enough. Yeah.
Let me break down a bunch of the reenactments:
—Marjorie stands over Merry’s bed, hovering over her sister, which clearly recalls the found footage is-it-a-haunted-house-or-demon-possession movie? Paranormal Activity . Both camera angles and lighting are similar. Marjorie is dressed just like Katie, wearing boxers and a tight T-shirt. ThePossession spices up the simple dread of hovering over a sleeping loved one with Marjorie pinching her little sister’s nose shut. It adds a layer of sadism that’s subtle and hints at possible greater acts of violence.
(aside 3: Yeah, more politics. Sorry. But it’s just so there and waggling in our faces!!!! The reenactment actress playing Marjorie, Liz Jaffe, was no fourteen years old. She was twenty-three and looked it. Marjorie was still a kid. Miss Jaffe was not. Liz had similar hair color, skin tone, etc., to Marjorie, but she was obviously more physically . . . cough . . . mature. She wore makeup, tight clothing, and in the masturbation scene, no clothing, but oh, she had on a few digitally blurred pixels to protect the poor audience from her nasty lady parts . So, yeah, “the male gaze” [please see Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”] is in full effect in The Possession at both extremes. The camera ogles a sexualized Liz Jaffe whenever she’s on screen. When the real Marjorie is eventually on screen [at the end of the pilot and in the following episodes], she’s ogled in a different though no less demeaning way. Real Marjorie is an object to be observed, but never too closely as we the voyeurs might find she’s a real teenage girl and actually begin to be concerned for her mental health and general well-being. John Barrett represented the valiant struggle of patriarchy in our decaying, secular, postfeminist society, and Marjorie was the withering object of the camera’s male gaze.)
—Marjorie projectile vomiting all over her family as they watched Finding Bigfoot (psst, they never found her!) in the living room was an obvious nod to The Exorcist . Maybe not so obvious, this scene is so over the top in its gastric viscera, it recalls the spewing geysers of blood and goo from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies
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