Possessed
Director: Billy
Chung
Year: 2002
Rating: 5.5
By
the time Billy Chung directed this film in 2002, Hong Kong was in the midst
of an onslaught of horror films brought on by the popularity of J-Horror.
There were some good creepy cringy horror films such as The Demon's Baby,
the two Horoscope films, Erotic Nightmare, Horror Hotline, Sleeping with
the Dead and New Blood but most of them were extremely low budget dross that
looked to have been made on a long weekend. They tried hard to ride on the
back of J-Horror, but it rarely reached that level. This one falls in between
the good and the bad ones. Cheaply made for sure with most of it taking place
in dull interior sets, but Chung could still make it look good. This was
the guy who directed Love to Kill. King of Robbery and a really good noirish
film, Paramount Motel. Using dim lighting and more jump scares than
you can count, he creates an edgy mood. The jump scares - a technique that
usually works on my fraught nerves - are well placed and unexpected - and
don't really make sense. But that's all right. It's horror.
Bad things begin happening to four people
and the connection is murky till the end. Sam Lee plays a truck driver who
is considered the nicest guy in the apartment complex until he takes a cleaver
to his mother and sister. The only explanation seems to be possession, so
they bring two Christian pastors (Eddie Ko, Tse Kwan-ho) to exorcise him.
What? No Taoist priest was available? The exorcism basically comes down to
them yelling that Jesus wants the demon to leave. Then a schoolgirl (Yoyo
Chan) is possessed and has to be tied down and begins spitting up blood and
breaking glass with her mind.
Finally, a talk show host (Julien Cheung)
and his assistant and former girlfriend (Ozawa Maju) begin getting visitations
and strange sounds in the dark. Maju is a Japanese actress who had a small
part in Tokyo Raiders and appeared in many Japanese TV shows. She has a very
interesting photographical elfin face - that Chung clearly loved shooting
close-ups of. Often terrified. I assume she was being dubbed into Cantonese
but even so she gives a good performance and is the character that you want
the camera to stay with as she slowly goes crazy.
Julien has never seemed like much more than
a pretty face to me and this doesn't change my opinion. The film meanders
too much for its own good, dealing with Julien's career crisis, Maju's love
for him, one of the pastor's having cancer and it all feels unnecessary.
Still some good moments though the ending makes no sense which was a habit
of many of these horror films influenced I think by the Troublesome Night
films.
