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Possession (1981)
64 Plays8 days ago
In memory of Sam Neill who recently passed on July 13, 2026, Rick and Trav honor the legendary Horror King Kiwi by covering his personal favorite of his filmography - Andrzej Żuławski's POSSESSION (1981). Starring a historical turn from Isabelle Adjani, this iconic psychological horror has confounded audiences for over 4 decades and counting - yet we keep coming back for more.... Also covered: tentacle appendages, blood sausage, and why you should be careful around older, erotic German men who also happen to be martial artists. RIP Sam Neill.
(00:02:07) - Random Banter
(00:04:10) - Horror Movie News
(00:06:45) - Intro / In Memory of Sam Neill (1947-2026)
(00:13:35) - Synopsis
(00:14:08) - Overall Thoughts / Themes
(00:24:30) - Production Notes / Casting
(00:30:10) - Box Office
(00:33:30) - Overall Thoughts / Themes Pt. II
(00:48:10) - Scare-o-Meter
(00:50:08) - Highlights
(00:55:25) - Awards
(01:24:30) - Scream Queen or King
(01:27:15) - Next Week
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Transcript
Reflections on Life and Film Choices
00:00:00
Speaker
No, I've got no fear of dying, but at all, you know. and And I know people for whom this is a great fear, but it doesn't worry me at all. i just I just want to live longer because life's good. And I i feel very blessed with the life I've had.
00:00:17
Speaker
it's sort of I've sort of brambled between things, just sort muddled along. But most of it's been a great pleasure.
00:00:33
Speaker
We're back. Rick, our road our groovy road to the evil dead is over. And I don't know about you, but I feel a bit of... feeling adrift without a purpose anymore as we kind of float around and cover ah a few films here before our next new release or franchise series. It's been a while since we've just kind of done a potpourri of ah orney films.
00:00:57
Speaker
You smartly, i I think the OCD part of me initially wanted to jump right into a six banger of insidious movies. And you,
00:01:09
Speaker
You shut the lid on that, and I think for a good reason. I don't know if we... I mean, after the first two, we probably would have been like, all right. But by the time we get to the sixth, I don't... We might have been possessed ourselves. Yeah, that's... um When we talked about The Evil Dead, the best part about that franchise is every single movie is a very quality film and a worthy installment. No, no bad evil deads. I don't think the same can be said for every insidious film. I love the first film, but that in six movies too, that's, that's a long franchise series where I didn't know if we wanted to subject our listeners to that quite yet. Well, we'll go a bit deeper on some other franchises first, maybe before returning to that one.
00:01:49
Speaker
Well, if we keep our Halloween tradition up six years from now, we'll be on Halloween six. Yes. But that's good pacing, one per year. So that's a lot more agreeable with me than just doing back to back to back the entire Insidious franchise.
Technical Challenges in Film Presentation
00:02:05
Speaker
um Travis, have you seen The Odyssey yet, directed by Christopher Nolan? I have not. But adapted from an epic poem by Homer? I doubt you see it, but we do have a IMAX theater showing it in 70 millimeter. I know. Or it was in Denver.
00:02:21
Speaker
Have you been following the news? do mean? No, what happened? A few days something happened to the projector that can't run on 70 millimeter anymore. So it only lasted for a few days until everyone has to see it in digital now. Everyone in Denver's uproar. It's really the only show in town, the only place where you can go see it.
00:02:38
Speaker
And so film nerds are in a panic, so to speak, endeavor because the one outlet they thought they could see it. Cinephiles, sorry, is the appropriate term. It's a slur. um it's it's ah Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not i'm not surprised. those i don't know if you've seen the projectors that they need in order to project 70 millimeter IMAX. They're like the size of cars. Really? they The tech to...
00:03:04
Speaker
to um fix them or to make them like doesn't exist anymore. You have to have like specialists come out with like retrofitted tools. Like the economies of scale are such that they'll never create these machines again. And so with the resurgence of them, thanks to Tarantino and Nolan and Villeneuve and stuff like,
00:03:23
Speaker
they're They're forcing, i it's it's good, right, for the industry because more people are interested, they're seeing it in like the pure form, but it's not just like it's not a scalable model. So it's like anytime a new theater pops up with a new yeah IMAX 70 millimeter, the theater might be new, the auditorium might be new,
00:03:43
Speaker
But the projector is like decades old and probably half broken. So I'm not surprised. I mean, that is a bummer. There's only like 25 in the that can support that. I was saying like they have to fly in like an out-of-state specialist of which I imagine there's probably only like one or two in the country who know how to service these things. Just some old dudes, some good old boys. Oh, ask this question, Trav, because don't know if you've been if your algorithm has sent some of these links your way, but Nolan is being asked quite a bit now when he's going to direct a horror film, because there's about three different scenes in the Odyssey that are straight up horror. Oh, I like it. Yeah.
00:04:28
Speaker
seriously well rendered horror like the tone is there ah the the jump scares are there ah practical effects like i mean that's across the board for the movie itself it's great movie but um that's why i want to see if you watched it because i think you'll pick up on like his his horror tendencies are are well honed yeah it's um yeah so would love for him to dip his toes into horror to that point um We have some other horror movies coming out.
Upcoming Horror Films and Personal Introductions
00:04:57
Speaker
I know one preview that accompanied the the Odyssey screening for most folks, if you got there to watch the trailers. i mean We got some other mommy action here with Jessica Chastain, which looks very good. I think that will be one we have to cover on our pod. I put it on our schedule, Trav, initially, because ah it comes out, what, in like...
00:05:17
Speaker
September? I know. I think it's an October release. I think it's a true like yeah Halloween timed release, which I love as well. i Well, we have to make a decision then because so we can't we'll have to pull a Halloween program movie if we want to cover it the day comes out. i mean, that's when our our Dr. Worland episode is. Yeah. let me Let's get in the lab a little bit. I feel like we can figure out how to to accommodate most of these films closer to their release date.
00:05:47
Speaker
um At least other mommy. I think that's that's outside of like Resident Evil. That's one of the films I think I'm most looking forward to for back half of the year.
00:05:58
Speaker
The the jump scare in that trailer, which, you know, now we know it's there, but hopefully there's more in the movie. But there's a part in the trailer where she's all contorted underneath the kitchen island. And I saw someone's screen grab that and say, that's how she caught Bin Laden.
00:06:15
Speaker
and Zero Dark Thirty. But when she plays the CIA agent. Okay. Okay. I get it now. She crept up on him. I have that image memed multiple times already since that trailer just released like a week ago of her like all contorted like you said.
00:06:31
Speaker
And then the a the Clayface trailer looks dope. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm hoping DC can right the ship with that one. um But we'll see.
00:06:42
Speaker
We'll see. But yeah, got some horror movies upcoming. um Instead of doing anything recent this week ah or or anything ah you know new release, we are going back in time a bit.
00:06:57
Speaker
And I guess before I get too far ahead of myself, this is the Sunday Scaries. I'm Travis Telerik. I'm Ricky Townsend. i love crafty and monster. We are paying homage to a scream King, a male horror lead who is near and dear, not just for his roles in horror, but also Jurassic Park and losing Sam Neill about a week ago. It'll be a little over a week by the time you guys listen to this episode. So we put a poll out. We put multiple polls out to you guys. du Yeah, it was close. Yeah.
00:07:31
Speaker
and And we did have to put our finger on the scales a bit after the runoff because it was in a dead dead heat, a dead tie. um So, well yeah, we had the three with the three Sam Neill, Big Horror Flicks, Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, and Possession, which, Trav, in watching Possession, I realized that all three are Lovecraftian horror.
Exploration of 'Possession' and Sam Neill's Impact
00:07:53
Speaker
They're all three, like, ah yeah cosmic horror. Yeah. And I think I've mentioned what you've seen two of the three now with watching possession. I've seen, that I haven't seen a vent horizon. um I love all these films. ah So we ended up with possession, which is what we'll be covering today. The 1981 film by ah Andre Zulowski, Andre Zulowski. Thank you.
00:08:16
Speaker
Where Sam Neill is the male lead, but ah this movie is also probably better known for Isabella Johnny's performance um as the female lead in this is one of the best poor female lead roles of all time, which we brought up recently when we covered obsession. Obsession. We're saying maybe Indie Navarrete is kind of up in that stratosphere now of one of the better. don't know. yeah she's She's on her way, but this is another this is another leave Yeah. yeah, so, you know, i I think we talked a bit on Sam Neill's untimely passing last week.
00:08:52
Speaker
And that is the motivating force for this episode. So all I'll add to that is it's cool to still see celebrities where there's very little negative press to say about them. Right. I think he was beloved by the industry and by cinephiles like ourselves alike. And ah man, he made some great movies for us. Jurassic Park included. I know that's more adventure than horror, but played a big role like in our childhoods just from that.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, it was I it made this movie all the more unsettling because. You know, he obviously he's not like he be. Through transformation in Jurassic Park, he he becomes a father figure, but he starts off as somebody who doesn't really like kids, but he's by all accounts a good man and he's like saving people.
00:09:41
Speaker
he's all sorts of fucked up in this movie. Uh, and he's amazing in it. I mean, I, I went in already expecting Isabella Johnny to blow my socks off, which she did. I mean, i finally, I, I agree with what I've heard the last, you know, several decades hearing about how great this movie is and how great her performance is. And she,
00:10:00
Speaker
it lives up to the hype for sure. She's completely unhinged, but I have to say, like I was really surprised with not only Sam Neill's performance, but his screen time. Like it, we follow his POV, I think a bit more than Anna's. Yep.
00:10:17
Speaker
And he's got like, they both just bought into what Zulowski was wanting them to do. ah And I feel like the movie operates, it's like everybody's existing in a world that is not real and there's a lot of theatricality to it and they speak in verse.
00:10:37
Speaker
And i have to say, Trav, like I've seen movies that are a lot less confusing than this, but that are much more frustrating to watch. And I was extremely confused by it, but I was not frustrated because ah there's there's like such a like there's such emotional truths that kind of dictate each scene. like it's Even if you don't understand what what the fuck is happening in the plot and why things are happening, and and it's not linear from what I can see.
00:11:10
Speaker
And i hate I regret to say this word because I feel like people overuse it. And I said this to you before the pod. People overuse the word lynchian all the time. like Anything that's weird or uncanny is lynchian.
00:11:24
Speaker
To me, this is truly Lin Shin. And as we get to talk about the movie, I'll kind of give my reasons for why I'm saying that. But one of the big things is like, you feel your way through this movie versus like intellectually understand it. Yeah, the the phrase I like to use is a ah beautiful mess because it is it is pretty damn messy.
00:11:45
Speaker
It feels like there is a thin line between profound and completely batshit crazy. And this is finding that precipice ah just right between it where you're like. man, I don't know what to think afterwards. Like it is one where, and I think this is an okay feeling of like running to Reddit or running online um because you, you want to wrestle with what you're understanding, but you also want to see what other people are taking away from this. It's a movie that lends itself to that dialogue afterwards where the the movie overstays just the viewing experience to, you know, still chewing on it for quite a bit afterwards. Well, i I texted you, do you understand, in quotes, possession? And your answer was, no one understands it. My favorite quote is that if you walk away from the movie without any questions, you're crazier than they were. Which made me feel, I honestly am glad you said that because I still had, I think, like 30 minutes left of the movie. And it allowed me to sink into it a bit better.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah. i So this is... um how we feel about the movie. This is currently just on the edge of my top 10 best horror movies of all time at number 10. Not the edge. That's number eight. Oh, that's number 10. It's number 10 for me right now. And I still, after rewatching, I think that's just about right. But outside of 28 Days Later, like these are...
00:13:07
Speaker
you know I feel like we're diving into some of my truly all-time favorite horror movies. I think that's the only other one we've covered that currently sits up there. um And so it was fun to revisit this one.
00:13:19
Speaker
um And especially fun knowing that you were seeing it for the first time and now we get to talk about it, which we, as always, did a good job of not sharing any of our feelings really until right now in the pod. So we get to hash it out live. So what was yeah takeaway, Rick? I love the movie. Yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
um Well, first of all, that's for those who have not seen it, this is ah the synopsis is A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce.
00:13:48
Speaker
Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister. And I don't think it gets much more clear than that because anything beyond that, you kind of just have to watch the movie. I mean, if we were to do a play by play of of sequences here, i think you might be even more confused than we were watching it.
00:14:06
Speaker
Um, But dude, yeah, i i I want to hear why it's in your top 10. um I loved it, though. i it's ah Like I was saying earlier, Lynch is one of my favorite directors, and I try not to compare him to everything. And i like I said, I often do think people do it. But here, you've got doppelgangers.
00:14:26
Speaker
You've got relational turmoil that becomes horrific. You have secrets and... um Imagery is really important. and but Also, both both filmmakers were artists in their own right. Zulowski was a novelist. and Lynch was a painter. ah They both went to film school, which you can tell. I mean, this guy has an eye for composition. So true to form for the film, which, like I said, is fairly messy.
00:14:53
Speaker
And I'm sure I will use that word multiple times throughout the pod. I'm going to be somewhat messy here and jumping all over how we feel about it and themes and a bit of production notes. But my my big point I like to emphasize and how I feel about this movie, touching on all those different areas is Zulawski himself was going through what has been reported as an incredibly messy divorce um at the time of making this film.
00:15:23
Speaker
And this theme of divorce and separation I think he just does such a fantastic job of not just having that be the main story, but you see echoes of that and everything else going on in the film. So like you said, this is set in West Germany right next to the Berlin Wall when a country has essentially been separated now and you have to deal with the repercussions of You know, that that relationship between East and West is teetering on the edge.
00:15:53
Speaker
And then you have a familial relationship in Sam Dale's character and Johnny's character, who's going through a separation and suspecting infidelity. And then you also have, and this is getting into like spoiler light territory,
00:16:09
Speaker
but a disassociation of the self as well. There's this theme of what a Johnny's character, Anna, talks about sister faith and sister chance and this duality of her personality kind of bifurcating in. So just everything is kind of coming apart really is this deep theme that I think is so well displayed through all these different layers. Like you get really meta to world ah in context to just like a relationship or just one's internal struggle. The milk and the blood. yeah milk there's like um ah The maternal symbolism of milk and then the violence of blood. you kind of see those liquids merge together and stuff. and I think the takeaway, like his message with all these things is like
00:16:54
Speaker
It's just extremely messy when you go through it It's never clean cut, right? you Once you dissolve a union of whether it's country or relationship or your own identity for who you think you are. or soul Or soul from the body. Yeah, or soul from the body. the grandma puts it.
00:17:13
Speaker
it there's no clean way to do that. And I think the film just expertly captures
Thematic Depth and Rewatchability of 'Possession'
00:17:19
Speaker
that. And I'm not the guy who's usually too big on theme, but this one speaks to me so well. It's portrayed so well, I think through the acting performances of Neil and Johnny as well, that I've always really liked that. I think though the horror's good in this movie, but it's not you know but a scurometer. I doubt this is one of our highest hitting films, um but to do it through the context of horror- It's a really good like psychological drama. yeah horror you know it's a descent into madness psychological trauma like it's it's checking a lot of different boxes of what this film is which again reinforces like it's kind of all over the place but i i like it and i think it's done well in that regard when you so is this your second time seeing it now second time yeah
00:18:07
Speaker
Were you able to map some of those feelings that you had? Like when you first watched it, I'm sure it was you know, you were kind of bowled over by these like images and performances that are just kind of not set in a grounded world and like odd sequencing, but you felt something.
00:18:27
Speaker
Was it satisfying to watch it again now that you've been able to sit with for, i don't know how many years it's been since you've seen it, like the thoughts you've had about what this means and separation, like, was it a more gratifying experience to be able to like, to like contextualize it a bit more this time?
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, I, i think I think a film that has good rewatchability sometimes can come down to not the story itself, but once you know the story very well, you know you're you're just being retold something where you know which direction it's heading in.
00:18:57
Speaker
But instead, this film just delivers such you know hyperbolic, raw, almost tantric like performances on how these characters act, especially Ajani, in that it's...
00:19:10
Speaker
It's entertaining to to see that, right? Sometimes we go watch movies to see a reflection of ourselves, but sometimes we do want the dramatization of of ordinary events, right? we Or or it it could be the extreme version of what you're feeling. you know could it be It can be an embellished abstraction of real life events in your own um existence. like Something that I took from it was you know at at its core, this is a movie about, like you said, it's it's a divorce, it's separation.
00:19:46
Speaker
And it's whatever... whatever caused the divorce or if the divorce causes this, some evil, some kind of like, um, hidden grotesque thing, which is embodied by some like slithery monster, um that we don't see a lot throughout the movie. Yeah. few advantages of him throughout. Right, but it's it's like four or five. yeah I guess it's not like a main character. you know It's not like this Lovecraftian monster is like walking around the streets. He's hidden away in this third apartment that Ajani has to like retreat to. it's It's almost as if she's like addicted to it, a being around it. But her
00:20:31
Speaker
her her union with this thing, um her love affair with this thing, seems to have... like you know, drastic impact on the people around her. um Whether it's her lover or her estranged husband, her son, her son's teacher, there's, there's some type of like ripple effect of, and maybe that is that maybe what Zulowski is saying is like the separation of, of a, of a holy union uh,
00:21:03
Speaker
is really, it's catastrophic for everybody. um But what's funny is like, you have that, you have the political, you also have like, almost a philosophical like, triates happening, where like, every so often they start speaking about like, the the lack of existence in God. It's, it's like a, you know, in our very first episode, we both talked about why we love horror and how it can be a platform for so many different ideas. And I feel like Zulowski is running with that concept of like, Hey, I'm going to serve you serve you a platter of relational drama, um, political symbolism.
00:21:35
Speaker
And also I'm going to riff on what I think about or the lack thereof about God, you know? I mean, this film reeks of a man who is struggling coming out of his own divorce, right? Like God is dead. yeah The world is shit. yeah Like that that is like, and it's it's not subtle, right? There's not subtleties of how he wants to portray that. He wants to just put it in your face of like, this is how I see the world right now. This is where I am.
00:22:06
Speaker
And yeah it's like, this it's like this violent, painful separation yeah of of people and things and like liquid, like dude, that, I mean, we'll talk about that infamous scene in the, in the tunnel. Yep. The subway tunnel.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. And did you notice also like occasionally people would just inexplicably have the inability to speak like they they start mumbling and they can't really like get the words out. It happens in the beginning with the Johnny. It happens in the middle with Sam Neill.
00:22:35
Speaker
It's it's like people are just rendered kind of helpless and stunned by whatever is going on in their life. Yeah. Heinrich, dude, can we talk about Heinrich? might Way too early to call her Scream King or Queen in the movie. And obviously Johnny's gotten the most praise over time. And this episode's paying homage to Sam Neill. But Heinrich is, you know, he's he's going at 110% this whole film and every scene he's in.
00:23:00
Speaker
He is dancing his way through every scene. he For those who haven't seen it, he plays a Johnny's lover um who she's been sleeping with since Mark, who played by Sam Neill, was away. Apparently he's like an international spy. I thought he was a private investigator. No, he's a spy, man.
00:23:17
Speaker
He's a big time spy. This is Cold War. we right This is ripe for espionage. And Anna is like, yeah, I'm seeing this guy. I want a divorce.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I think we were wrong-footed a bit in thinking that the whole reason for the divorce was this guy. um Turns out later there's something much more sinister and like and like spiritual going on of like what's causing their angst. But he's a good foil for a while of, like of I don't know, like ah free love and eroticism and like dancing all over. He doesn't wear any shirts, really. manni He is the manifestation of like...
00:23:53
Speaker
this scary older European man that your wife may run off and elope with because yeah, his shirt is... yeah I don't know why he wears It gets so unbuttoned always down to like the very last button at the bottom. got a he got a very interesting relationship with his mother. Yeah, how he's making love to Sam Neill's wife, to Mark's wife. He still lives at home with his mother. it's like, my gosh. By far the most interesting character side character. um Yeah, Heinrich. yeah i I have a lot to talk about Heinrich throughout the episode, but it could be better.
00:24:32
Speaker
Did you so you talked about the divorce he was going through. he was also dealing with some real professional problems and and and ah governmental problems. um He had been at odds with the Polish government because his second film, Devil, um the communists in Poland did not, they took issue with his depiction of of authority and the government there. So they banned it. He had to relocate to France.
00:25:03
Speaker
and Then he made a movie in France called, in 1975, called The Most Important Thing is Love, or The Most Important Thing, colon, and love. Gets his flowers again. He's happy.
00:25:15
Speaker
goes back to Poland, tries to make, in 77, tries to make On the Silver Globe. Have you heard of this movie? No. It is often talked about in like film circles about like some of the more experimental, abstract filmmaking it's it's i mean a lot of this guy's career has been experimental avant-garde either hyper violent or hyper sexual he's always like going against the grain but this one is like there's astronauts and there's like ancient civilizations and it's kind of all over the place and again they came in they shut down production and they burned all his sets they destroyed his sets ah this is the old ussr baby
00:25:59
Speaker
So he goes he goes to West Berlin and he's feeling this way. And like you said earlier, that plus the divorce, he's not in a good way. um And i I wonder if that's why he has the government officials kind of looking down at Mark in a certain way. and Maybe he feels that way, ah observed.
00:26:20
Speaker
But I bring up On the Silver Globe because almost... a little bit more, 11 years later, 1988, unearths what he did film and puts it out for the world to see.
00:26:34
Speaker
So I just wanted to give a little background of did this guy's professional career. This this this clearly was his like his magnum opus, the thing he's known for. He was nominated for for Best Director at Cannes, and then Ajani won Best Actress for ah at Cannes.
00:26:49
Speaker
At Cannes, yes. Wasn't nominated for Academy Award for this film, although she has received, i think, two Academy Award nominations. um ah Devil's also a very well-received film, his his first one that got him ousted from Poland, although I have not seen The Devil, the movie.
00:27:07
Speaker
I was going to say, you never know, Trav. You never know. um Apparently, it it took her years to recover from this role, by the way. Yeah. You know, ah Johnny has had a very storied career. um not but She still acts a bit. She's still a working actress, has come out in movies in the last decade.
00:27:27
Speaker
But like late 70s, early 80s, she was the hotness of ah especially like horror leads. She's a true scream queen. She's Lucy Harker in Herzog's Nosferatu. That's a great movie, by the way. She's in The Tenet, plays the lead role in that as well. Yeah, and so she's had, and those are just like her horror leads.
00:27:48
Speaker
I forget off the top of my head what she was nominated for, but she has two Academy Award nominations as well um for Best Actress. And so... ah i mean, she is a force, but I think as far as her horror career goes, this is her most notable film.
Performance and Reception of Isabella Ajani in 'Possession'
00:28:07
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's like I said, elevated to one of the best female lead performances. It's like her and Sigourney Weaver usually are mentioned as like some of the best horror performances of all time.
00:28:19
Speaker
Did you know that um the DP for this film was her partner at the time? No. Bruno new Newton was a Johnny's partner and is the DP for this film. Very active DP. I mean, he's this cameras roaming almost nonstop. It is one of the things going back to my Lynch comparisons that separates him from Lynch, which Lynch is much more meditative and a bit more slow cinema as and I guess was the like the kind of the keyhole to getting a Johnny to agree. She was hesitant to take the role in the first place.
00:28:49
Speaker
And he kind of used Bruno being his guy as a reason to do this. And can you imagine... Like what you often hear about actors saying like, Oh, this was such a hard role. It really took a lot out of me. And then, you know, they go back to their trailer and it's all comfy. And I see that on set when I'm there, you see her break pretty much. Like I, if you just try to practice what she's doing in some of these scenes, like it exhausts you physically. And I can't imagine what she's having to do emotionally. Yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
It's one of those... I feel like it's one of those roles where when you they so they say, it's so difficult, it almost killed me, you believe it, you know? And so then you have Bruno filming all this, like two feet from her the whole time. That's a fucking a weird dynamic.
00:29:38
Speaker
ah Yeah, I... I mean, Sam Neill's on record, too, saying it was one of the most rigorous films he's ever had to, or most extreme films he's ever had to make. And so he's filled with dinosaurs. Yeah, exactly.
00:29:52
Speaker
He stared down at T-Rex, and this is still the one taking the cake. But yeah, yeah the the cast gives it their all. um I mean, talking about production stuff, it's probably worth calling out, too, like,
00:30:06
Speaker
a modest budget for a film of this time at $2.4 million. dollars It was not a box office success when it came out. It did not initially... Shocked by that. In the US, s yeah. um for For its release, you know, it doesn't initially... It comes out at Cannes in 1981, and then it has a UK release.
00:30:29
Speaker
But because... But it gets banned, right? Yeah, exactly. It gets banned. And because of kind of the... um the protest against it, when they do end up releasing in the US, they trimmed this down to an 81 minute cut of the film from what, it's over two hours. it's it's Let's say it's full runtime here. It's 124 minutes. So they took off a third of the film for the US release, where you know you lose just a lot of plot, you lose a lot of the visceral character reactions, and because of that did not meet any like success in release either.
00:31:09
Speaker
I'm saying that it made $1.1 million dollars at the U.S. box office. Domestic. He's a master at like building dread and intrigue and really spinning a yarn, like an emotional yarn of like what he's trying to get you to feel. and you throw off that tempo, it's going to fuck up the entire balance. Um,
00:31:29
Speaker
You know, this is not the first film trap that was released in 81 and was declared a video nasty because it was banned. This is Evil Dead, 1981.
00:31:39
Speaker
Same fate, same the people clutched their pearls and were like, we're banning this and became a colloquial ah video nasty. So I want your thoughts then, because people like to admonish where we are today in the current age, being like, think of the good old days, how far we've come.
00:31:58
Speaker
Does this mean we've become more open and enlightened as a society where we're willing to embrace these films? Or does it just mean we've become so desensitized to stuff that we're like, yeah, I i see people literally dying on YouTube. So what's a scary movie going to do to me?
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think with the proliferation of media in general and how accessible any type of it is, it's bound just everything's diluted. I think we're also more progressive. I mean,
00:32:29
Speaker
we were until few years ago, but ah culturally speaking still, I think we, yeah, we have a more, ah a better palette for this kind of stuff. Isn't it isn't it so interesting if you think of the eighties specifically that this film The Evil Dead, like we talked about with Raimi, and The Thing are all movies that really were not commercial successes when they were released. There was a lot of yeah protests against them. And now if you think of like the best horror films of that decade, these are three that are off the top of the list. Yeah, are hailed as some of the best horror films of the...
00:33:05
Speaker
Decade, if not like best horror films of all time. It's just so interesting that their legacy has transformed so much over time that it it makes you pause and think like what films today could this be 40 years from now Babylon. Babylon Hive, baby. ah I was mainly speaking to horror, but I appreciate you getting in another Babylon reference.
00:33:27
Speaker
I think, you know, maybe that's why I relate to these films, because like them, I'm also ah a grower, not a shower. And sometimes it just takes a little bit of time. And you know what it is? There was a right answer, but you didn't. You didn't come out and say it.
00:33:41
Speaker
28 years later, the bone temple, give it a chance. People give it a chance and watch that movie 40 years from now. You stepped on my dick joke just to ride for 28 years. later bone temple My enjoyment and possibility of seeing a third film is largely dependent on our listeners going out and downloading and streaming this movie. So we can see there's enough demand for the than to make the final installment for the new track. Sorry, I didn't get the propaganda memo. I'll ah i'll edit this.
00:34:12
Speaker
Anyways, okay. ah Other production notes. So we we've talked about Sam Neill. We've talked about Ajani. um Other roles. So Margaret Carstensen plays Margie. And maybe actually she probably pronounces her name Margie.
00:34:28
Speaker
She was pretty prolific, especially in German film and theater. lot of movies haven't seen. And then Heinz Bennett is our boy Heinrich. Looks like a young Anthony Hopkins. Yes, he really does. I'm looking at his picture right now, his headshot.
00:34:42
Speaker
um Again, very prolific in German films. um But as I don't watch a lot of 1970s or 1980s German films, I'm not as familiar with his work. You should check out Nosferatu, though. That's a good one. Werner Werner's not Sparato Werner Werner apologies um but that's that's really like our four main characters um anything else on cast or crew or production that we're not touching on here I mean this film has such a legacy we're probably doing a bit of disservice with not having more to say other than it's it's picked up traction like you said it is a grower not a shower of a horror film
00:35:23
Speaker
Hey, I can relate. I guess the other thing you talk about is his legacy, whether it's um Black Swan or the or...
00:35:36
Speaker
or Honestly, some of Lynch's work. a I've got a lot of Lost Highway vibes here. i haven't seen the Suspiria remake, but I've seen that mentioned in relation to this ah multiple times. I've heard a lot. There's a lot of people who go out and say it's better than the original, which the original is a very, very good horror film um in and of its own right. So I do need to see it. I think they're just different. Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
they They accomplish different things. and I need to rewatch the remake. I was cool on it when I first saw it in theaters a long time ago, but I i really think i would I would enjoy it a lot more the next time. I guess if you want to talk about the the relational horror of it I mean, you can tie this all the way up to Hereditary or like Midsommar, really another breakup movie.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, I like Midsommar actually as the ah comparison. That is, I've never thought of breakup horror as a specific subgenre, but this would be, ah those would be two films. Maybe I'll have to make a letterbox list that would fit great into that.
00:36:35
Speaker
do you know what's You know what's a movie actually that I was thinking about while I was watching Possession is Mother. Aronofsky's Mother. Yeah, I've seen people mention that as well, which is funny because I love Possession, but I was not as hot on Mother. And I love Aronofsky's film. You can see, i mean, you can kind of see the similarity like things are closing in. It's tense. It's it's a woman in trouble. You know, it's it's the Roman camera situation. Like maybe they're Different in execution in terms of what it's leading towards, but I mean, I can kind of see the similarities.
Artistic Expression and Cold War Setting in 'Possession'
00:37:13
Speaker
what if you If you could summarize like the the main thing that keeps this so high on your list, what would you think it is? like if what it's What's its special trick? yeah I mean, I think it is the characters just like,
00:37:29
Speaker
how they project their emotions in this film. and Yes. Yes. and yeah I'm glad you said that. is it's Again, it's i'm going to I don't want to reuse words or rehash too much of what I said, but it's so in your face. so ah It's a dance. where yeah it's like german It's like German expressionism, how like exaggerated their movements are, but it's it's consistent and it lands well. It doesn't feel desperate or...
00:38:00
Speaker
incongruent with the ah the film's emotionality. Like, their arms outstretched, their expressive eyes, the anger in Sam Neill's face, the way they twirl around. I mean, Heinrich's pretty much doing a dance number the entire movie, but it, it all, it all works. It's like this, he immediately convinces you that this is not the world that you and I occupy. And then it's, you know, what is also crazy that you talk about the performances and this theatricality and and the, and your face,
00:38:32
Speaker
But then when you get these master shots, these wide shots, they're they're almost like... ah being overtaken by these brutalist structures and these huge buildings and these dilapidated apartments. And there's not many people around. It's very sparsely populated cityscapes.
00:38:51
Speaker
it it feels very lonely. Cold cold War Europe. very A lot of grays, right? A lot of grays, a lot of dark tones, a lot of, like you said, foreboding buildings and empty streets and really just a drab, cold, scary place to live. Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
I mean, not not to get too deep on this, but like as you know, i i I called off a wedding in 2017 right before it happened. But honestly, calling it off wasn't the hard part.
00:39:20
Speaker
that That gave me a lot of relief. It was like wringing my hands for months about what to do because I just felt like this wasn't right. I felt like ah I should not get married. I was having... nightmares of the venue burning down and shit like it was just not good. And my life felt very bleak and life felt lonely and things seemed very intimidating. And it's different than going through a divorce. But I think he captured that like hopelessness, that idea that, yeah, God must be dead if I feel this way. And my heart's splitting into speaking, splitting in two, since I guess we won't have the opportunity talk about this in our awards.
00:40:00
Speaker
I wanted to give you my take and i spoiler alert here now because we're going to talk about the ending. so my take on why there's a teacher, there's a teacher role in this movie who is played by Isabella and Johnny's. It's her with green eyes.
00:40:18
Speaker
Um, and you ever listened to of the evolution of horror, Trav? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another good podcast. Great podcast. Um, ah he has a great episode on this, on this movie. And I was kind of thinking along this way and I think he just articulated it better than I was initially, but it was like,
00:40:37
Speaker
He... is ready or he knows that this relationship is unhealthy, but he can't get away from her. And so he's projecting her face onto somebody else. Like the idea that maybe that teacher looks completely different, but in his eyes, he is seeing his wife because he's has this possessive obsession over her. And that even though he's trying to leave her, he can't get away from her. And he's, he's circling back with her in the same way, whatever creature that Isabella and Johnny is like helping create,
00:41:10
Speaker
as you see at the end becomes a carbon copy of Sam Neill. So it's like this cyclical idea of you want to get away from this person or this thing, but then you run towards the same thing. And it's this cycle of like, uh, self, self harm or like bad habits. You know, I'm,
00:41:29
Speaker
yeah Trying to say this somewhat poetically is I've seen a lot and I i think I agree that their doppelgangers are almost each character's projection of who they wish the other person Yes.
00:41:44
Speaker
yeah so Maybe that's not the real life way they look. for sim For Sam Neill, for Mark, he's seeing Helen, who is the teacher played by Ajani, as the woman who's actually there and caring for their son and is the more docile housewife. And for for Johnny's character, Anna, she's seeing now at the end ah the Sam Neill character, her doppelganger, as the more intimate lover and the person who's not you know out on the road and being a super spy, James Bond, but he's present.
00:42:16
Speaker
Maybe that is the monster that leads to divorce, right, is if you marry yourself too much to divorce. who you want someone to be and not accept them for who they are, like that can oftentimes lead to destruction in the relationship because you're, you're holding them to a standard that is different than the person you actually she married, but who you just want. And if you chase after that too much, um it can only lead to disaster and ruin.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah. It's like you're, you're creating something in your own head that doesn't exist. And then when that bumps up against reality, you're, Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. It's going to be disastrous consequences. Now, you you mentioned something earlier that I want to go back to. And I know that we're taking longer than normal, but there's just this is so it's it's got a rich lot of rich themes here, even if they're not extremely familiar. Confusing themes, right? Like, I think this is the theme, so let's talk about it. I'm not 100% But look how much it's given us to talk about. Like, that's what's so great about abstract art is like it's up to our interpretation and there's enough imagery there that gives us like these little morsels to hold on to.
00:43:20
Speaker
So she says that she had and i I forget, Travis, is that if this is before or after the iconic miscarriage scene, she says that she miscarried ah Faith and Chance or or one of them. Sister Faith. What did she say?
00:43:36
Speaker
Which one did she which one did she say she miscarried or which one died? I think sister faith dies where sister faith is hope and what is good in the world and sister chances more chaos. Whatever it's chaos. Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
Man. Okay. Yeah. That's, that makes a lot of sense. ah Do you think that the monster is a manifestation of the bad feelings that you have when you go through shit like this? I've seen that again, it's very open for interpretation the film. So lot of people say there was no monster, right? This was just her dealing with, again, projecting who she wanted and her husband, Mark, and how she comes to terms with that. I don't know. I kind of like... like my horror movies to have real monsters, not just endings of, oh, it's all in the head of time. He's kind of a cutie pie towards the ending, with little side green eyes. I love before he's fully transformed, like the last time you see him in his squid form when she's making love to him, and then it zooms in on his beady eyes on the squid form, and... It was, again, kudos to the effects team because for Carlos Rambaldi. These were some pretty high-end practical effects, which is another reason I really like it. And why 80s horror in general are the films that lean more into practical effects. I wrote down Carlo Rambaldi because you were just mentioning Alien, and he was a special effects guy that did Ash's head Alien after he gets-
00:45:11
Speaker
all fucked up. Yeah. Milk. Um, he does that then possession and then goes off to do ET, which I just find is a funny, uh, like evolution of craft.
00:45:23
Speaker
All great. Just very different. Um, okay. Anything else? I mean, we've talked a lot. We I'm down if, you if there's other points we need to hash out.
00:45:34
Speaker
No, I, I feel like we got the big stuff. Okay. we We got the big stuff out of the way. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those films that we could definitely, you know, come back years from now and probably do a completely new pod on this. Oh, yeah. and A lot of points we haven't.
00:45:47
Speaker
I think it depends on where you're at in your life, and you'll take away different things. um I think the only thing we didn't really talk about was young Bob, great name by the way. yeah ah He clearly was discarded and in an afterthought in this movie. and um The real victim of divorce, as they say. It's the kid. Well, Zulowski says that like a lot of this movie, as you so as you kind of alluded to,
00:46:13
Speaker
was pulled from real life. And there's one scene in this that he says really happened. He, he's on the outs with his, his wife and things are not going well. And they're both distracted with what's happening. He comes home and he finds his son who had been home for hours by himself with jam and yeah jelly all over his face. It might've been more than hours. Mark was gone for three weeks and it's not clear the last time Ana was there. Like it could have been days.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah, but like it it wasn't schmaltzy. It wasn't dramatic. It was tragic. Like what was happening to that kid who seemingly drowns himself at the end? Yeah.
00:46:49
Speaker
Is he just hiding or does he drown? him What are we supposed to think? It looks like he's trying to drown himself. He was so resistant to Helen, who again is, you know, bringing his projection or ties into Mark's projection of like the mother who's there and very caring and taking care of Bob.
00:47:06
Speaker
And she's about to let Doppelganger and Mark into the apartment. he's so resistant to that, that when he realizes that she is going to go through with it and let him in, that he wants to end things. Which, getting ahead of ourselves, but pretty crazy ending too. Because you also hear,
00:47:22
Speaker
you know, diverging from history, like Germany's just going to full on war there. Like the East versus West, you hear the air raid sirens, you hear explosions. So again, reinforces that point of all divorce is messy. It's only going to end in disaster.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Great. All right, Bob.
00:47:47
Speaker
RIP Bob. And RIP Sam Neill, man. I, again, super impressed with his turn here. It wasn't it wasn't just the Adjani show, even though she gets most the accolades and deservedly so. I just, I thought he he held his
Iconic Scenes and Espionage Elements in 'Possession'
00:48:00
Speaker
own. Yeah. and He's a good crazy person. Most of his horror films, he's devolving into madness. And he does a really good job at that. All right.
00:48:09
Speaker
Let's move into our awards, starting with our scurometer. Count us down. All right. Three. two, one, four.
00:48:20
Speaker
Okay. Three and a half. That seems right. That seems right. Okay, so we have actually three, three and a half movies already. Oh, so I'll start at the bottom.
00:48:33
Speaker
The one right outside is 3.25 and jaws. This is than jaws. Thanksgiving Ooh, later, trick or treat at and then twenty eight years later three point five and then outside of that is trickortre at four so I think it's scarier than Jaws. I would agree. yeahp um I think it's scarier than Thanksgiving.
00:49:02
Speaker
These are some good practical effects for the creature. In the first few times you get to Anna's third apartment that she's subletting and you're waiting to see like what is actually inside here. There's some true dread where I don't think Thanksgiving ever gets to that. Thanksgiving's parody, right? Yeah.
00:49:18
Speaker
I don't remember ever being there. There's a few cheap jump scares in it, but nothing to this level. So we I'm fine really putting this anywhere. um what about between the two 28 years? Like, do you think 20 years later? That's ah i think maybe both those are scarier than this film. 28 weeks later, so some pretty scary sequences in it. Um, all right. I'm fine. But between Thanksgiving and 28 weeks later. Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, so not our scariest film, but scarier than some we've seen. um Yeah, but it you know it you don't watch... a This is not a movie you watch to get scared. You watch this to it feel and like be kind of mesmerized by this confounding movie.
00:50:04
Speaker
A solid 3.5. All right. Highlights. I feel like there's one very clear highlight scene here. Well, this is your movie. So you tell you take us through it because it's so great.
00:50:16
Speaker
Portions of this movie are non-linear, like you said. so it was only upon rewatch that I started to realize that what I think is the best part of the film or or most memorable and most hailed today is a Johnny by herself in abandoned like subway terminal in Germany. She's, she's walking home presumably with a bag of groceries and,
00:50:40
Speaker
and i Upon rewatching, I'm realizing this must have happened maybe and predates most of the rest of the events in the film. Like this is her first splitting of herself between, again, Sister Faith and Sister Chance.
00:50:54
Speaker
And she suffers a miscarriage, like you said, in the subway station. But this is not the subtle, like back against the wall, tragic type of miscarriage that it it's um How many miscarriages types are there? Well, I mean how it's portrayed in film sometimes. You can see this as a very... sad Directors know the strings to pull to make you tear up. And instead, this one is...
00:51:22
Speaker
manic and all over the place. And yeah the the miscarriage is almost an afterthought to like, she goes out of her fucking mind in this subway station. I didn't know what was happening. Growing groceries up, screaming, again, being just visceral and jumping around. And ah it it's, you know, a few minutes of just a tour de force of...
00:51:46
Speaker
letting a Johnny just riff and be like, show us as crazy as crazy can get. Do you know what Zulowski instructed her to do for that scene? Have you heard this?
00:51:57
Speaker
She said she only got one instruction from him and all he said was, fuck the air. ah Yeah, it's sexual too. You're right. i mean, like it's, it's carnal.
00:52:09
Speaker
It's, and I'm exhausting adjectives here, but I mean, this is what I think the the main scene people point to and like, yeah, let a Johnny cook. Like she was all over the place in this. Her eyes are like bulging out of her head. Yes.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yes. And you, you feel horrible for her at the same time of being deeply frightened by her to be like, what is going on right now? Yeah, that was like when i realized ah why this is a generational performance. and not Not that it wasn't good before this, but this pushed it over the edge to something like, oh, this is like cinema history. This is like... Anybody can go crazy, right? Anybody can like yell and stuff, but Like I said before, there's a certain unhinged artistry. It was controlled but uncontrolled. It like it had through lines. There was consistency. like she She was doing the same hand movements and screams and like it it it all culminated into this collapse that then is very graphic with like
00:53:10
Speaker
pus and blood and milk and i think and then there's things coming out of her ears and her eyes like she's she's bleeding from all these pores and um it makes a lot more sense that this happened long before traven i think it'll be valuable in rewatch for me to know that too because nay it's clear now that you say that she was like telling the story to sam neil like to to mark right yep um Yeah, that I mean, what what else is there to say? That's like the scene of the movie. um Another one I really liked, which is not as like, um I guess it becomes more visceral extreme is the cafe scene.
00:53:48
Speaker
where they sit down after, you know, they're they're discussing what they need to do about Bob and the relationship. And it's now more out in the open that she's been sleeping with this guy. And Zulowski does not care to make this a realistic depiction. It's again, emotionally real, but it's not practically real. Nobody's going to sit down.
00:54:07
Speaker
facing away from each other at the corner booth no one's gonna yell like that while there's other patrons in the store and even when they're yelling no one's really looking at them until they start to fight physically um i just thought it was framed really well it was he makes any even mundane scene or or or conversation seem really active and ad manic and uh And then obviously it devolves into like violence, but I, that just sticks out to me as like one of their more human moments that becomes, uh, more outlandish as it goes. Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker
There's a, the few depictions like earlier in the film of their fights are all great. There's the one in the kitchen with the electric meat knife, um, that they're, They're just wild. and it's great to see the characters just go toe to toe and be completely unhinged. or you know Mark's supposed to be, again, I think our primary lens to view the movie from.
00:55:02
Speaker
And it's it's kind of a betrayal of our trust is we're like, all right, this is the sane guy. like He's going to handle this situation well while Johnny's going crazy. And just very quickly, Mark also devolves into insanity where you're like, all right, never mind. Could not trust that guy either.
00:55:16
Speaker
I've become profound and good and wise. don't worry about me. um Okay. um Jump scares. I don't really have a single jump scare from this film. Did you jot down any?
00:55:31
Speaker
I had one. I wrote it down. and Maybe you can jostle my memory of like what was happening. but It's something with Bob. and All of a sudden, he goes, like I want my mommy. He like jumps up something from somewhere. it's like I want my mommy. and i think I don't know if it was like Sam Neill was...
00:55:47
Speaker
in a quiet space and he was thinking about something and we're drawn into his words. But at some point, Bob just comes out of fucking nowhere and cries for his mommy. Yeah. I don't remember. I vaguely remember what you're talking about, but I don't remember the cause or I can't really set the scene for, for that right before it. Not many like big jump scares.
00:56:09
Speaker
Um, I just realized, do you think there's any connection between Bob from Twin Peaks and Bob the son here? i don't know. i hate to break it to you, but decades ago, Bob used to be a pretty common name. We don't see too often anymore.
00:56:26
Speaker
well Yeah. I mean, do you think they should have called him Robert? Or Bobby. Bobby, yeah. ah Okay. That kid looks like a Bobby. Maybe he's a little Bobby Flay. Yeah. um Cantaloupe Award.
00:56:41
Speaker
have a few cantaloupe nominees. I just i had her had had her ah her lovemaking scene with the Lovecraftian fuck monster. Yeah, that's one of them. That's one of them. Just I was trying to get a sense of like where where his junk was and like was he was he using different. got a few tentacles he can yeah kind of kind of help assist the process. But yeah, I mean, he seemed like a multitasker. Yeah, it's just hard for us normal men with only four appendages to compete with the squid monster that has like eight or nine, you know.
00:57:15
Speaker
I mean, I got five. yeah it much you for but Okay. They still have us by at least three appendages. What kind of monster are you?
00:57:27
Speaker
ah I don't want to know which one you're missing. Kendall down there, baby. oh God. Very PG. massecctomy trav You took the vasectomy too far. I didn't realize how much they were to take off.
00:57:43
Speaker
It's like a bad haircut. Oh, you didn't tip. Oh, got more than the tip. So of other cantaloupe nominees. I think that's a great one. We talked ah about the subway scene where you have pus and milk and blood just pouring out of Anna.
00:58:02
Speaker
Um, that's very cringy to watch, but I actually had topping my list. Um, So Mark, Sam Neill goes to confront Heinrich in the bar after Heinrich has now gone to Anna's apartment, discovered the monster and been stabbed repeatedly.
00:58:18
Speaker
Mark decides he has to set up a diversion to kill Heinrich. He just can't do it outright. And the way he decides to do that is he finds a feather and he dips it in a public toilet water basin in the public bathroom at the bar and gets the feather nice and wet before he has to put it in his own throat to gag himself. And I have no idea why had to be wet. And if it had to be wet, why he didn't just walk over to the sink to wet it as opposed to just sticking in the toilet bowl.
00:58:47
Speaker
why did he Why did he have to gag himself again? i i think he wanted to call Heinrich over to him and couldn't just say Heinrich come over here, but wanted him to hear him gagging, I guess, to call him over. It's also a bit of a dull knife, but...
00:59:02
Speaker
maybe Maybe... Really committed to the bit. Exactly. Maybe maybe the scene was put in there by Zalowski just so they could make Sam Neill dip a feather in a toilet and then have to stick it in his mouth. Yeah, that was little gross.
00:59:15
Speaker
Deep cuts, I feel like i already... We already mentioned them in the... in the earlier part of the episode, but the nods to Lovecraftian horror, this kind of unrelenting, indescribable cosmic horror. And then, um, yeah, the, the, the little subtle, and then at some points, not so subtle nods to like the setting and the Berlin wall separation of state, um, espionage being, yeah, like a spider. Yeah. And, I did think it was cute. The, it felt like
00:59:50
Speaker
a senseless circle of events of like this pink sock situation like hey the guy i was following had pink socks and then the guy who pursues him at the end has the pink socks i don't think it's supposed to mean much i think it's allows because having fun with us i've had to that was like the first thing i went the my first watch of it the movie i had to go online because it is the guy who tasked him with the mission yeah to find someone with pink socks happens to be the man who is wearing pink socks. And so it's like, wait, am I so am I supposed to take something away from this? And i I, don't think so. I think he was trying to like dovetail the beginning with the ending.
01:00:28
Speaker
And it was just a very curious. sort It's like a point. It's a pointless endeavor like this to get to the bottom of things like but you can't really discover the truth of the matter because things are so chaotic and things don't and maybe things don't matter. And that's what he's trying to say. But it's not one of those movies where i it's like the usual suspects like, oh, it all makes sense. now That was Kaiser. So say, OK.
01:00:50
Speaker
Right. yeah um Yeah, so it was a bit silly in that regard. I agree. A bit of the state of espionage back during the Cold War is like everyone's a double agent or triple agent or you to investigate yourselves. And so maybe maybe that's the only takeaway I can get from it. But um yeah, that's definitely ah part of the theme and part of deep cuts as in historical context of ah of the film.
01:01:16
Speaker
I didn't really have... Much else. I mean, you don't see a lot of pop culture references or anything in that regard. i have some cannon fodder if we want, if we want to do that. Oh yeah. I got best deaths. I got cannon fodder.
01:01:28
Speaker
um there's, there's a lot of deaths in this movie. I forgot that until I rewatched it. And so I am curious who you have here. You want to start with cannon fodder? Yeah, I just picked the first private investigator who just kind of got senselessly slaughtered by Anna, ah smashes the bottle, approaches him, plunges the broken glass into his body, and kills him, I guess, near the monster.
01:01:56
Speaker
I'm assuming so she can feed the monster? I don't know. I mean, she keeps body parts in the fridge, so maybe those are for future consumption, or maybe she's just a collector. I thought... I well, we see his feet sticking out near the doorway and we see his head and arms. um She's like putting the bone in your parts maybe and he's eating the torso.
01:02:17
Speaker
But it does seem like she is having this creature grow Yeah, he's changing. and That's for sure. And I just didn't think this PI was a very important character. well and you say that. I was going to bring this up for best twist, for a Shyamalan twist. Oh, because it's the lover. The yeah lover. Yeah. who We think it's this random PI and, like, let's be honest, horrible at his job pi when he's ah trying to tail her. Like, come on. He's pretty on the nose there. When he's, like, pretending to run up the stairs and he's just running in place. Yes. Very much has been in sight the whole time. Then he's like, oh, I'm the window inspector for the building. But that that was not the twist. The twist is...
01:03:00
Speaker
He does mention when he thinks ah Anna is coming on to him, he's like, no, no you misunderstand. I have kids. So maybe that's the misdirection of like, oh, he's married to a woman and has kids. So then we are shocked with the big twist later when there's a second PI who also goes to the home and gets killed. But before he does, he confronts Mark and talks about how...
01:03:24
Speaker
He lived with the former PI insinuating that they are they are lovers. They are a couple. And so I thought that was pretty interesting for especially the first you know investigator or spy. So have you no named character in the film, but they do want to bring him back to be like he was also a romantic interest of this other spy. Which again, what that contributes to the movie as a whole, I don't know. hey That's why wanted as a contender for biggest twist. It was like dropping a bomb on us like, oh, I didn't know I was supposed to care about that guy.
01:03:56
Speaker
what was ah What was your cannon fire then? um So near the end of the film, I had a few I kept writing down being like, this is a good one. This is a good one. I think my favorite actually near the end of the film.
01:04:07
Speaker
ah Mark realizes that his own agency has found where Anna is living and they're going to her home or where she's staying now to confront her and the monster. And so Mark decides to go vigilante and save Anna by convincing a cab driver to just go 60 miles an hour or so rear end someone. And then secret agents start pouring out of the home and there's a gunfight.
01:04:34
Speaker
And we randomly get a quick shot of a agent wearing an eye patch in a suit who steps out in the middle of the street and gets gunned down. And I just really like, yeah, I, you know, if going to show me a secret agent wearing an eye patch, I was instantly captivated, but gone too soon for just adding to the body count of him getting shot down. That's right. I forgot about all the cards at the end. That's, that's a better one. I, I agree. That's, that's the cannon. Yeah. Adding, adding bodies to the, the body count there, but. At least they gave him like he wasn't just your generic spy or, you know, agent. He he did have the eye patch.
01:05:10
Speaker
um I'll go first because I think you probably have a better one. But my best death is a death you already mentioned. I i liked Heinrich's death a lot. Yeah. um It comes back to one of my favorite quotes, too, which I'll save. But um he, as you were saying, he gets Heinrich to ah check on him in the bathroom And then he kills him. He's how does he kill him in the in the stall? takes the lid of the toilet, the porcelain lid. Oh, yeah. He stars heavy me and slams it across his head. Yes.
01:05:45
Speaker
More so the aftermath that ah stuck with me as far as why I love this one so much. He shoves his head into a what seems to be a used toilet, ah whether it's blood or feces or both, and he flushes it and walks out. And I really can't think of much more disrespectful ways to kill somebody. ah Nobody likes a cheater, and and you're typically not going to root for the sexed-up yoga instructor, poet, lover guy.
01:06:17
Speaker
The hedonist, yeah. So i I did feel a little like... a I don't know, a little satisfaction, ah but it was striking like I did not see it coming. And um and it also ties in one favorite quotes. so That's probably why it helped me yeah Yeah, I know the exact quote you're going to share, but we'll save it here for a minute. um Yeah, I think Heinrich's up there. I liked Heinrich's
Humor and Dark Themes in 'Possession'
01:06:38
Speaker
mom. Again, this is borderline cannon fodder, but they decided to stick in an extra scene of Mark going to visit her just so we could see her you know take a full handful of pills and just be like, yeah, my son's dead. So I'm out too. done. That's it for me.
01:06:53
Speaker
You know, there's not graphic monster kills here. Most of the carnage is actually done by Anna, actually, right? Not the monster, because she's the one breaking bottles, stabbing people in the neck, shooting them. Sometimes the monster is ourselves. Do we know how Margie died?
01:07:08
Speaker
She appears in the elevator with like a slit throat, but i'm not sure who did that. Some sharp object. Yeah. Yeah. um Yeah, I think that's good. Shyamalan twist. So if it can't be... What was yours? What was what was your number one? what was right I said Henrik's mom.
01:07:25
Speaker
Oh, okay. yeah I mean, it could be... I guess the main character is getting gunned down. A little Bonnie and Clyde-esque ending for Anna and Mark um getting gunned down. And then actually, yeah, Anna takes the gun and turns it on herself.
01:07:40
Speaker
And then Mark... Actually, we we have to... you know This a Samuel episode. What back shots, Hunter? Yeah. But, um you know, this Sam Neill episode. we We do have to give him credit, too. He somehow survived the gunfight and then getting shot through what I presume, because Ana's laying on top of him, she shoots herself through the belly, which must have also shot Mark.
01:08:03
Speaker
But he still has the strength to get up from that spiral staircase, high-rise building, and then just jump off the stairs all the way down to the floor. That was a hell of a leap. Hell of a leap.
01:08:15
Speaker
ah Yeah, so a lot of deaths. lot of deaths in this movie that kid could contend. um ah Shaman twist. I thought it was that this whole time, this creature that she's making becomes a doppelganger of Mark. I was not expecting that.
01:08:33
Speaker
I like that in in the same vein. I think what I was most shocked during the movie or caught my intrigue is when you're first introduced to Helen on his doppelganger as the teacher at the school. Because that's early enough in the film where it it's gone a little off the rails, but not completely off the rails. And you're all of a sudden like, wait, is this...
01:08:54
Speaker
Is this Ana still? Is she like, you know, schizophrenic and, yeah you know, like living two different lives at the same time with multiple personality disorder? And so that that was also, and know, ah a twist, so to speak. So both of our, both doppelgangers are twist. Doppelganger twist, yep.
01:09:11
Speaker
Maybe we change the name. Never expect a doppelganger. No, you if it's a twist, it has to be the Shyamalan twist. Shyamalan. no one No one does the twist quite like Shyamalan. What a twist. All right.
01:09:27
Speaker
Don't go in there. Don't go in there. And I have one this time. What do you have? I have the ah the second agent who shows up to investigate where his lover, the first agent, went in Anna's apartment.
01:09:42
Speaker
And he steps into the bedroom to see some Lovecraftian abomination on the bed. He also sees his partner killed. And that, for me, normal man would be where I'd say, I'm out of here. I'm not going to stick around and try to litigate what happened here and figure out. But i have clearly stumbled across something that I should not be witnessing. And I am going hightail it and let the the rest of the authorities come back and force it get involved. so he yeah he was he just started He started like taking a deeper tour into the house. Yeah, he came more into the bedroom. He's like, oh, well, if there's a monster here and my dead lover, like what else do you got back here?
01:10:23
Speaker
You can't turn your back to a Lovecraftian sex god. yeah You just can't do that. um Mine was... My don't go in the reward was...
01:10:37
Speaker
If you're a person with a cast on your leg, so you're already vulnerable, i and and then your friends start acting in a very peculiar, violent way, i probably wouldn't hang out with them until at least they get the cast off.
01:10:57
Speaker
So Margie just keeps putting herself in danger. And I have to think that her undoing was that if once one of once a Johnny was getting after her, couldn't hobble away fast enough.
01:11:11
Speaker
I just think it was bad. Stay at home, man. You got a fucking cast on. Rice. Rest. Ice. Compress. Elevate.
01:11:21
Speaker
Do not be walking around these West Berlin flats with your crazed... Also, you're sleeping with your friend's husband. Was she? some bad just Was Margie sleeping with Mark? pretty sure. I never really understood for sure if they had a thing or not.
01:11:40
Speaker
They're just European, man. like you You're always a little flirty with your acquaintances. Doesn't mean you're sleeping with them. Yeah, sometimes you and then you sometimes you kiss them on the head. Yeah. Sometimes, Travis.
01:11:52
Speaker
um Yeah, i I could kind of relate, but I'm surprised to hear this coming from good guy Rick over here. Guy would assume you'd be the first person with a broken leg to be like, hey, I can still come over and help.
01:12:03
Speaker
i I would, i'm i but i'm I'm not going through a messy divorce or an affair with a with a tentacle monster. So, I mean, i won't cast the first stone, but look I got a job to do. got to give out these awards.
01:12:18
Speaker
All right. now Now, best lines. Do you want your Mark's being of Heinrich toilet water line? This is, again, part of Zulowski's God is dead philosophy and a nihilism. And somebody on the other line is trying to convince Mark that ah we should love everything or we should be positive. And he goes, I met a man who loved everything.
01:12:45
Speaker
He died in a flood of shit. Yeah. And that's, is that not the case, man? Nice guys sometimes do finish last, you know? i can detest. ah Speaking of the not nice guys, so another Sam Neill line, since this episode is for him.
01:13:03
Speaker
when he confronts Heinrich, one of the first times in the apartment. And Heinrich, the hedonist, is talking about like free love and like, can you really fault me that your wife loves sleeping with me?
01:13:16
Speaker
so Mark, Sam Dale goes, you think you've given her the supreme pleasure? You think with your yig-ying balls dangling from your zen brain? And yinging balls is just a great, great insult getting balls a yogi, free love, older European man.
01:13:35
Speaker
Well, let's keep it going then, because ah shortly thereafter, after Heinrich gets stabbed by Ajani and he's not doing well and calls Mark because he doesn't know who else to call,
01:13:49
Speaker
and he's bleeding. Mark is loving it. He is just soaking it up. He's he's kind of teasing him a little bit. and he tells him, he's like, hey, Heinrich,
01:14:00
Speaker
Go to the corner bar. Wait for me. Bleed for a while. Yes. bark Mark definitely had a vendetta against Heinrich, which again, fairly justified. He was sleeping with his wife, but ah the the rest of a big portion of his character arc is not actually projecting his anger at Anna anymore in the latter half of the film. It's just taking it all out on Heinrich.
01:14:24
Speaker
Heinrich and himself in some cases. and just yeah um i have one more. and Heinrich says it. and Heinrich says it while he's contorting himself in an ah in um ah um like a musical way. and he's After he's seen the monster in on his apartment.
01:14:43
Speaker
He's trying to appeal. he's trying to appease to Mark. He's trying to get them to, I think this is the part where they, neither of them know where she is or maybe Mark does, but he doesn't.
01:14:55
Speaker
But anyways, he can't find her and he's trying to, ah he's trying to convince Mark to work with him, to be friends with him. And he's like, I want to discuss with you the redistribution of our parts in this vulgar structure, the triangle.
01:15:10
Speaker
He's got away with words, Jaime. Yeah. you know And away with other things, too, which I'll never be able to experience. It sounds like he was an expert. Speaking of ah good lovers, I did love when the second agent comes to Ana's apartment.
01:15:24
Speaker
And he's looking for, like, well, was my partner came here. Like, do you know where he is? And they get to the bedroom. And it's the first impression of the squid monster in the bed. And, uh, Anna says, he's very tired. He made love to me all night, which I'll always love. just like, what? Like you see a monster. That's the first thing to describe it. Yep.
01:15:45
Speaker
All over the bed. Blood and gore and monster. And milk and like white milk or something. Yeah. That's, that's a great one. That is, I, that is one of my favorites. Um, um,
01:15:57
Speaker
All right, Dull Knives. I didn't have many because the movie is like... The movie's crazy. How do you have improbabilities with a movie that's so improbable anyways? um My biggest one, after I really thought about it, was...
01:16:12
Speaker
Mark is really an international spy. He he seems like a PI, if anything. like He doesn't seem very sneaky. He's not great with a gun.
01:16:23
Speaker
he's like clearly can't get out from the under the foot of these like other agency guys. I don't know He just... Crashes out on the motorcycle he steals at the end of the film. like Cannot drive it yeah like James Bond. Yeah. International spies, have you see ive pull if you're Bond, you should be able to drive anything. he he didn't have control of his emotions. is He is antithetical to what I think of most spies. yeah i donive that He was not very convincing spy. I had this as a more general one of like, are any of these spies actually that good at their job? Him included old pink socks and to look for pink socks and then continuing to wear pink socks himself. The initial the initial spy who's tailing Anna, who's just like extremely noticeable. She can watch him coming up the stairs. do you know what do You do know what a like ah the term pink sock is, right?
01:17:16
Speaker
um Yes. But why are you bringing that up? Because you're just, you keep mentioning pink socks. I mean, it's from the film. Do you think that's what Zawalski was going for with his reference to it?
01:17:33
Speaker
I mean, if he's going to allude to rectal prolapses, he's, he, he does seem the kind of guy who would do that.
01:17:41
Speaker
Okay. So that's your takeaway from where they get their job or not. Yeah. All right. Okay. I do have other smaller dull knives though.
01:17:53
Speaker
um So there's a big kitchen fight scene with again, an electric ah knife. We, we saw one of these electric knives the evil old dead, actually in multiple evil dead movies. So, you know, when it's first introduced, someone's getting cut with that and you see both Anna and um cut at or cut herself and then sam neil after the fact after he's calmed her down start cutting himself this is all going on while they are still making that sausage on the countertop and so my tool knife is just like what did they do with all that food blood sausage baby it was true blood sausage one seemed to dispose of that um ah they're like i mean
01:18:35
Speaker
They weren't doing too great. They didn't seem like the type that were eating their iron. And then I also liked, so Helen, Johnny's teacher character, has multiple interactions with Mark from at the schoolyard till she comes over to help watch Bob till they sleep together. And it's like way later in the movie that she slips him a piece of paper with her name on it, which I just thought was pretty funny. Like, oh, now she's like, hey, by the way, I do have a name.
01:19:01
Speaker
This is my name. i know we've been banging for a while here and I've been watching your son every day, but, uh, slow game. Also, I'm going to tell you my name on a piece of paper. Not just like, Hey, it's about time. I tell you my name's Helen. Just like, I'm going to write it down so you can see it. That's a pick. That's a pick me girl. If I've ever seen one. um Yeah. Like you said, I'm sure there's plenty more things you could pick apart with the film, but it's intentionally messy enough where it's hard to find issue with too many specific parts.
Humorous Takes on Divorce Movies and Podcast Conclusion
01:19:30
Speaker
All right. What's next? Winners and losers. All right. One winner I have are divorce movies and I've made a list. Oh, okay.
01:19:43
Speaker
Coming in at number five is Boyhood. Not my favorite movie, um but I do think if I had been the product of divorce, I would have appreciated it more. And then the more time I've thought about it, I do think even if it's A better idea than it is an execution. i still think it captures like the slow, tough moments of divorce pretty well.
01:20:10
Speaker
Number four, Kramer versus Kramer. A great pull from ah Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Number three, Marriage Story.
01:20:21
Speaker
um Number two. I think one of your faves, Trav, Mrs. Doubtfire. Oh, yes. A wonderful divorce movie. um number one if i can't include possession like let's let's assume possession is number one weve but number one for me is the santa claus with tim allen oh i just think that that's very yeah this is a really good post-divorce crisis i will say though on the spot i just thought my number one and you didn't even have it on your list that would be crazy stupid love
01:20:55
Speaker
that Have you seen that movie? That's such a good divorce movie. Who is he divorced? It's Steve Carell. That's it. That is a really good movie. I should have put that on there. You got Gosling and you got Marissa Tomei and you got Emma Stone. Emma Stone, yeah. That's such a good movie.
01:21:10
Speaker
um I also have It's Complicated with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Another really good divorce movie. Meryl Streep's hot in that. She is. There's a few films where I'm like, man, she was a babe. um Horror movies. Have you ever seen... ah What is it? Death Becomes Her?
01:21:27
Speaker
With her and Goliath? Oh, yeah. No, but I've heard it's great. Oh, man. And Bruce Willis. that's ah That's a really good 90s film. Maybe we'll have to cover that at some point. because She's a babe that one.
01:21:41
Speaker
I have a winner. Okay. Cab drivers who are just way too eager to crash their car into their car. I literally... Is that what you're about to say? Yeah.
01:21:52
Speaker
The next one below my divorce list was loyal cabbies. Like he didn't have to hold a gun to his head. He's just like, I need you to crash this car. And the cabbie was like, say no more. i got you.
01:22:04
Speaker
I'm your man. Wow. Especially because Mark dives out of the cab before it's been crashed. So theoretically, the cab driver could have just like slammed on the brakes and mitigate the damage, he still goes full force into the cop cars. Look, not a lot of logic going on there.
01:22:20
Speaker
Yeah, dude. Loyal cabbies. I'm the guy that you need. yeah um Another winner, the name Bob for a five-year-old. Yeah.
01:22:31
Speaker
I just think that's kind of awesome. you always You always want to see that. I like kids, yeah, with adult, kids with adult names that you're like, I've never seen someone who's not like a grown man with this name.
01:22:43
Speaker
That's what Sarah always says whenever she sees a picture of me as a baby. She's like, so you came out of the womb and they just thought, I'm going to call this little baby Richard. Yeah. Like they just thought you were going be Richard. Like what the fuck?
01:22:58
Speaker
That's a pretty good point.
01:23:02
Speaker
um All right. you have any more winners? Because I have a loser. No, I have some losers.
01:23:08
Speaker
My loser is anyone who's married to someone named Anna. Oh. Who meets a personal who meets a new age erotic martial artist, which happened to Zulowski, his wife, when they split either before or afterwards, she met a new age erotic martial artist.
01:23:32
Speaker
You're just trying to tell me I need to keep my wife away from old German men who are extremely hedonistic and teach yoga or martial arts. I'm just saying it's a loser. I also like that you keep saying Anna to separate yourself from. yeah You're like, there's two. I think her name in the film is Anna though, right? is Yeah, it probably is.
01:23:51
Speaker
ah But yeah, ah i'm I'm just, I feel bad for for a Sam Neill scrimmager. So one loser I have is there's a scene of ah Anna in her ballet studio and she just goes to town on one of the town ballerinas.
01:24:08
Speaker
that poor girl but i had her as a loser because on it's just like i pull your knee up even higher higher higher just tell the girls there's so much pain and then the best part is they still show she goes to the next girl looks at her forehead she's just like yeah that's perfect and the girl who she was just like lambasting just gets so upset she runs out of the studio i mean she didn't have what she didn't have what it took yeah yeah it's the ballet is tough um Are we ready for the Scream Queen or King?
01:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that covers all my winners and losers. So ah if we had a who did the most with the side character, It would be Heinrich for sure. I don't think I'd Scream King. He's a good honorable mention. lot of respect to Sam Neill. Easily the best performance I've seen from Sam Neill. And he said on record this is his favorite movie that he's done. Really? I didn't know that. And sorry, I'm going back to Heinrich when this is Sam Neill episode.
01:25:08
Speaker
But I just wonder, do you think the actor saw Sam Neill and Anna... being so, again, visceral and tantric with their roles that he was just like, all right, well, I'm going to do my own thing too. Like, even though I'm not the subject of this possession, because like, he's just going like 110% as well. And he's not a character who has doppelganger being made of him as far as we know, but he just gets caught up in the whole thing where he's like,
01:25:35
Speaker
Yes, i I'm also going to act like a crazy person. I think it's the mix of his natural tendency to kind of be this free spirit. But I think he's also being, by proxy, impacted by this evil, this monster. Yeah, maybe that's that.
01:25:50
Speaker
Like you said, he's literally like dancing around but yeah and like covering his eyes as if he's blind, which I don't think he is. Even even when he fights Mark, yeah he like does it in a very Tai Chi way.
01:26:04
Speaker
ah But no, I mean, it's is it's Isabel Adjani. Yeah, it's Adjani. um Yeah, her and Neil, if we ever want to give it to Duo though as a co-lead, since this is a Sam Neill episode. Sure. Like they...
01:26:18
Speaker
I'm down for that. capture a couple um divorcing from each other but jointly devolving into insanity and madness.
01:26:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I know I already gave my divorce list and i only excluded possession because of technicality is we're recovering it. But I can probably safely say this is my favorite divorce movie now.
01:26:44
Speaker
It's just over. It's complicated. I'll bring it up over Santa Claus over Santa Claus. Wow. It's just it. It captures the. The broken heart and like angry spirit of it all. And like, again, it's not very linear. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it makes emotional sense to me. And i yeah, it it cuts deep. It's good, dude. and It's really good.
01:27:08
Speaker
All right. Well, I think that does it for us this week. um We're doing a 2026 film next week, but not a new release. And I think we're going to cover Send Help. Is that a coming week? Yes. And right on the heels of a breakup movie, we're going to a Send Help movie with my partner, Sarah. Yes.
01:27:32
Speaker
So hopefully it doesn't lead to madness yeah like like Sam Neill and Ajani. Yeah, just don't keep any of those electric knives close to you guys while you're recording.
01:27:42
Speaker
They'll be in the gun safe. yeah um ah Please follow us on ah on your on your podcast platform of choice. We're on a lot of them. Pocket Cast, Overcast, Spotify, Apple, and Instagram. We're on the SundayScarys.pod where we post...
01:28:04
Speaker
posters of movies and then put the episode number on it and also have polls that uh today's episode yeah thanks to your guys's input so sorry that we couldn't break the tie even a second time but hopefully we picked the right one man i was again this is my favorite of sam neill's films but i really wanted to go back and watch event horizon so maybe we'll have to add that to the docket at some point when I love sci-fi horror. When he dies again, we'll do it. Okay.
01:28:35
Speaker
When his doppelganger dies, then we'll cover Right. That guy's still out there somewhere. He is. He convinced that. i mean, we talk about it. He just convinced some random lady to open fire on the feds as they were coming in.
01:28:47
Speaker
Sweet-talked her and then made his escape. Silver-tongued bastard. All right. All right. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see next week.
01:28:59
Speaker
I'm not wearing pants. Okay. And we're back. We already started.
01:29:14
Speaker
not wearing pants
01:29:19
Speaker
ah okay and we're back you to be already started
01:29:27
Speaker
It's a good sound metaphor at the end.