10 Fun Facts About Demon Possession in Movies

Eh...sort of.

I found this sitting around in my file folder. I had written this after a viewing of the movie Antichrist (1974), and similar The Exorcist clones from the 1970s. The one thing these clones have in common, other than being near duplicates of one another, is they are not very good, to outright wretched.

Of course they do have other things in common too. Let's say 10 of them. I made this list sort of as a mini primer on demon possession movies. Obviously I have taken liberties for the sake of having fun with it, but these 10 things are certainly inspired by the myriad clones of The Exorcist.

1) Demons are apparently hard of hearing as they have to be told repeatedly to depart before they eventually leave.

2) Demons have a telekinetic ability to throw things around a room including, but not limited to, furniture, plates, candle holders, records (CDs) and priests. I admittedly admire this ability as it looks like it would be fun.

3) Demons have an obsession with vaginas and thusly possess females and spread their legs in front of priests. Obviously they have no understanding of priests or else they would know that possessing a little boy is more likely to get interest. (Oh...that was sooo evil!)

4) Demons must have poor vision as a priest wearing a cross has no affect on them but the same priest holding the same cross out in front of them puts it withing range of the demon's sight.

5) Never, never, ever feed a demon, especially anything that is green or contains peas. Remember...feed a cold, starve a demon.

6) Demons are good housekeepers. After all, they do leave a body in better shape than it was while they were possessing it.

7) It's not that the exorcism is painful. Really. I mean, have you seen some of the guys they send to do exorcisms? You'd scream too.

8) Being possessed by a demon causes excessive gas in the subject. Hence, this explains levitation.

9) Demons have no sense of direction. When given the opportunity to run, they will run to a church or a holy site.

10) Demons like to speak Latin. Not because it represents anything significant as it is usually gibberish, just that it really pisses off priests and that makes it a fun thing to do.

And always remember...Just Say No to Demons

Toxic Fletch

Movie Review: The Incubus (1982)

This is a review I originally wrote for another review website but the website has since disappeared. It's a little longer and more detailed than my usual review being I was writing for screencap margins. I happened to be looking around in a file folder and found it. Figured I would post it here.

The Incubus (1982) - USA - Horror - R

Directed by John Hough

Starring John Cassavetes, John Ireland, Kerrie Keane, Erin Noble (as Erin Flannery), Helen Hughes, Duncan McIntosh, Harvey Atkin, Mitch Martin

On the tail end of the 70s supernatural/satanic horror boon and the apex of the slasher cycle, it would make sense that several movies came out which married those two premises. This is one of them and that's the most that can be said about it...except maybe that the marriage didn't work out.

Dr. Sam Cordell (John Cassavetes) has been in the small New England town of Galen for a year now. It's a quiet town, that is until a series of brutal rapes start happening. The first victim survives the rape, though hospitalized in critical condition due to the violence of the rape and the physical damage to her, and the shock of something she saw but is unable to tell. Her boyfriend and subsequent rape victims are not so lucky as someone or something is on a rampage leaving dead and mutilated bodies in the wake. The doctor, a journalist and a cop are on the trail of whomever or whatever is committing these atrocities, with mounting evidence of something strange afoot, including a young man, the boyfriend of Sam's daughter, who keeps having strange nightmares.

::spoiler alert::

It's an Incubus!

Oh, wait. Do you suppose the title gave that away?

Unfortunately the title of this movie is the only part which has such clarity. It moves along as though the viewer is familiar with the characters. An example would be the character of Lt. Drivas who appears in several scenes and obviously is someone in authority, but I actually had to look his character up on IMDB to find out he was a police lieutenant as he appears in several scenes, flaunts his authority, and yet leaves the audience wondering who was that unmasked man. 

The movie even takes additional liberties with leaving elements of the story hanging. In the case of one of the attacks, in this case with multiple victims, one has to assume all the victims were killed as it is unclear in the movie. Additionally there is a background story on John Cassavetes' doctor character alluded to in flashbacks and a short conversation and then just disappears.

The art direction in this is right out of a slasher movie, and I don't mean the good ones. Bodies are carried away on stretchers covered in white sheets which are covered in blood. Damn, the medical teams in this sure are sloppy. The same is the case for forensic evidence left behind at scenes presented for the sake of looking bloody for the camera despite how inconsistent it is with the scene that was just played out. How the hell did a bloody handprint get there?

The performance of Kerrie Keene in this is stiff. I don't know if it is her lack of experience, or nerves? Checking on IMDB this is listed as her first movie, though that doesn't necessarily mean it's her first acting experience. Maybe it was the direction they gave her for the way they wanted her to portray the character, but she seems to mostly have one style of expression which is somewhere between being pissed off and a deer in the headlights. Her eyes stare wide as her dialogue is delivered with baited breath, like an angry child talking under its breath to its mother. If it is the direction it would seem a poor choice when having someone work off of other seasoned actors like John Cassavetes and John Ireland.

As for the rest of the acting, though there is some overacting most of the performances in this are very good, better than one might expect. The dialogue is not consistently good, just mostly good. The acting and dialogue are much like the other parts of the movie I have mentioned, inconsistent.

The Incubus comes off like a puzzle you just put together, but a few pieces ended up missing. The puzzle is still complete enough to see what the end result is, and the movie successfully tells its story, but those missing pieces just glare at you, irritate you. The Incubus has several missing pieces that, though not necessary to complete the story, get in the way of the enjoyment of the movie as one sits wondering just who the hell that Drivas guy is and why did the doctor's past disappear, among other pieces.

For my personal taste, the story is too choppy and the presentation too inconsistent to enjoy, and it's not sooo bad as to be enjoyed for that. It just kind of falls in the middle in a place called Forgettable.

My Rating: 2 Fingers

This movie is available on DVD and Instant Video. The DVD is expensive but the Instant Video is very affordable.

Toxic Fletch

Movie Review: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake (1990)

The Great Los Angeles Earthquake (1990) - USA - Drama - TV Movie

Directed by Larry Elikann

Starring Joanna Kerns, Dan Lauria, Ed Begley Jr, Bonnie Bartlett, Lindsay Frost, Alan Autry, Joe Spano, Holly Fields, Brock Peters, Stephen Elliot, Robert Ginty, Clarence Gilyard Jr, Richard Masur, Silvana Gallardo, Richard Herd, Michael T Weiss, Charles Siebert

Average, depressing and formulaic, this has TV movie written all over it and yet is still well made and entertaining if you have 3 hours to spare.

Dr. Clare Winslow is a seismologist monitoring tremor activity for an underfunded agency. Recent tremor activity leads her to believe a much bigger tremor is going to hit Los Angeles. She finds herself up against city officials who don't want to panic people if she's wrong, a sleazy land developer who wants to shut her up at least until he can unload beach property, and a tabloid TV reporter who uses creative editing in an interview he did with her which gets her in even more hot water.

Overall The Great Los Angeles Earthquake is well made with a cast of who's who of TV stars from the 80s. A main story line runs the course of the movie while intersecting other micro stories. With an all-star cast and various human drama stories involved, stop me if you've seen this before. They could have, and may well have, made a movie poster of this featuring headshots of all the stars in it. Its formula is straight out of the 70s disaster movies, updated with stars contemporary with the time.

An advantage this movie does have over some of its predecessors is a more brutal reality check. Don't get your hopes up that a particular character will survive because it would be the nice thing for the movie to do. The intent, as I see it, is to portray a more likely outcome should such an event happen, and that means high mortality, and at that it succeeds. If you like a movie where lots of people die, this is your movie. If you like a movie where people are heroically saved in seemingly impossible situations, you'll want to look elsewhere. It would be a good movie for preparedness but it is depressing.

My Rating: 3 Fingers

This is available on DVD.

Toxic Fletch

Movie Review: Supervolcano (2005)

Supervolcano (2005) - Drama/Disaster Movie - UK/CAN/USA - TV Movie (BBC)

Directed by Tony Mitchell

Starring Michael Riley, Gary Lewis, Shaun Johnston, Adrian Holmes, Jennifer Copping, Rebecca Jenkins, Tom McBeath, Robert Wisden, Susan Duerden, Jane McLean, Sam Charles, Kevin McNulty, Eme Aneke, Garwin Sanford, Joanna Gosling, Shelagh Mitchell

Supervolcano is simply the best disaster movie I have ever seen.

Beneath Yellowstone National Park lies a huge chamber of magma as Yellowstone is a supervolcano. A super eruption happens about every 600,000 years, give or take, and with it being past due and tremor activity having increased in the area, a reporter quizzes the volcano experts at Yellowstone. Another vulcanologist who has been predicting an eruption has the reporter's ear and this gets the government asking questions, and getting answers they don't want to hear should a super eruption happen. And if it happens it will be catastrophic on a worldwide scale. This is a fictional account of that actually happening, or as it says at the beginning of the movie "This is a true story...it just hasn't happened yet".

What sets Supervolcano apart from any other disaster movie, especially those dealing with volcanoes, is its docudrama style of presentation. The story alternates with singular explanations, like interviews, from the different participants in the story. This has the unique advantage of explaining things on a factual level as they take place in the story.

Don't know the difference between a red and gray eruption? You will. Do you know how many times a passenger jet flies through an ash cloud each year? What is volcanic ash and how many inches does it take to collapse a roof? What affect does breathing ash into your lungs have? What about the affects on the weather? These and many more things you will learn about volcanoes, and this is a movie, not a documentary.

The characters in this did not fall out of a comic book or spy novel, but seem like people you would expect to see dealing with a disaster. The acting is superb and writing is brilliant, combining to create a tense and educational drama that will have you on the edge of your seat. One scene in particular was so well done as it turns into near a screaming match between scientists on the edge, the tension so thick you can hardly breath.

They obviously did a lot of research for this movie. A companion documentary was also produced. Not just the effects of a super eruption were well researched but the response before and after a disaster as well. You don't have the obligatory call to the president scene in this movie, but the departments that would actually deal with a disaster is the focus. Why ask someone who doesn't know a damn thing about how to deal with a disaster when they are surrounded by people who do, or can learn to deal with it?

And of all things, this is a made for TV movie, made by the BBC. As disaster movies go, this has special effects, a talented cast, a well written screenplay, sets and locations that give it authenticity. It has those things other good disaster movies have, then it goes beyond that and offers so much more.

My Rating: 5 Fingers. I give it a high five!

This movie is available on a Region 2/PAL DVD. You can also find it on YouTube.

Toxic Fletch