POSSESSOR (2020) FILM REVIEW

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18, 103 Mins

Brandon Cronenberg’s techno horror is an audacious mix of science and schlock.

In the opening scene of ‘Possessor’ (2020) - the second feature film of Brandon Cronenberg (son of David) - a woman murders a man by stabbing him in the neck multiple times. Blood oozes and spouts from the cut and the screen is drenched in red fluid. On the strength of this sequence, Brandon Cronenberg inherits the body horror bug of his father David Cronenberg - the body horror auteur behind ‘Videodrome’ (1983), ‘The Fly’ (1986) and ‘Naked Lunch’ (1993).

But Cronenberg jr. appears altogether more world-weary than his twisted father. ‘Possessor’ is a gigantic, physical metaphysical thriller that combines Cronenbergian body horror with ideas about cyber-stalking and the dangers of technological advancements. What a brilliant premise for a horror movie in an age where the spectre of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden still looms large and talks about whether social media needs Alcohol-like age restrictions is becoming the norm.
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Andrea Riseborough is terrific as Tasya Vos - a contract killer for an industrial espionage corporation. This corporation specialises in transplanting the consciousness of agents into unassuming civilian bodies in order to carry out covert assassinations.

If that plot summary sounds like a more violent version of ‘Inception’ (2010), you’re not thinking too far off. Tasya’s latest target is Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott) - the boyfriend of Ava Parse (Tuppence Middleton) who is the daughter of an American mega-corp CEO (Sean Bean). 

Having spent months perfecting Tate’s speech, habits and mannerisms, Vos possesses the seemingly innocent gentleman. But this is a job rigged with hazard as the “possessor” can become psychologically damaged by their stint as essentially a psychological parasitic worm and can lose track of their true identity outside their host’s body.

Brandon Cronenberg first wrote ‘Possessor’ shortly after Edward Snowden leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013. Snowden’s disclosures uncovered a number of global surveillance programs, several run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the liaison of telecommunication companies and European Governments. His revelations prompted cultural discussions about national security and individual privacy.

That discussion continues in ‘Possessor’ which might be the first post-Snowden horror film to directly address the issue of cyber-surveillance and freedom of information. 

Riseborough’s Vos stalks Abbott’s Tate. There’s a scene early on where - shortly before meeting Abbott’s extended family - she recites exactly the trivial lines she would say to her own husband and young son. “Oh honey! Oh honey!” she repeats before going twice “what do you have there or what do you got there?” and saying “God, I’m hungry, I’m really hungry, Michael”.

It’s not that we haven’t seen genre movies about cyber-stalking before. Think back to the ‘Terminator’ films (1984-) where Arnold Schwarzneggar and Robert Patrick - androids from the future - were sent to hunt down and assassinate Sarah Connor so that her son John could either never be born or couldn’t grow up to be a resistance fighter.

But ‘Possessor’ is the first film of the Assange/Snowden era to really tap into our anxieties of who could be watching or reading what we post online and inhabiting our lives right down to facebook photos as a result.

‘Possessor’ is also concerned with a more general, universal concern about the fear of technological advancements and the dangers they pose for the future. In the early moments of this film, an assassin injects hair taken from a syringe into her bloodstream. This is hair stolen from her next victim/suspect so she can inhabit his body and mannerisms.

I was really reminded of the rather good TV series ‘Humans’ (2015-2018) which aired on Channel 4 a few years ago. In that series, households were able to buy live-in “synths” - androids with human-like features down to everything, but a human heart. These synths blurred and bridged the gap between the physical and technological - much like the “possessors” at the heart of this film where technology has allowed humans to enter other people’s souls. A dangerous warning about whether we are vesting too much faith in the digital side of the world?

All this science would appear to suggest that ‘Possessor’ isn’t gory. It is! Cronenberg delights in his father’s passion for practical effects and prosthetics. Particularly in the final reel where Vos enacts her f**ked fantasies on Sean Bean and his hapless daughter. With a glass shard to the eye, there is blood and lots of it.

There’s also a truly spine-tingling moment of facial disfigurement horror that really taps into our ill-judged fear of physical difference or deformity. When a woman puts on a mask peeled off of another woman’s face, I was reminded of Jean Cocteau’s rubbery and grotesque designs on the beast of ‘La Belle et La Bete’ (1946).

If you’re looking for an audacious mix of science and schlock, ‘Possessor’ has it all. That and very real warnings about whether we should really be letting technology and social media control our lives.

‘Possessor’ is on multiple platforms now.
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