Writer(s): Cull
Starring: Giles Alderson, Francesca Fowler, Paul McGuinness, and Zoe Richards
I don't think, in the entire history of cinema, that there has ever been a horror film where so little happens over the course of 85 minutes than in The Possession of David O'Reilly. It feels like an eight-year-old was given a video camera and three adults and told to make a movie that's scary; but in this scenario, it would be forgivable if the youngster failed. What's not so forgivable is this is the work of not one but TWO grown men, who have whittled the horror film down to a series of characters who seem to do nothing but scream and run. Also, don't pay attention to the title, because the only thing it delivers out of it is a character named David O'Reilly.
Alex and Kate are a couple living together in an apartment. One night, a man named David arrives. He is distraught, having just discovered that his girlfriend of several years was cheating on him, and didn't have anywhere else to go. He and Alex, you see, were old college buddies, and have remained good friends since then (he and Kate actually hung out with David and his now-ex girlfriend just two weeks prior, and note that everything seemed fine). Kate goes to bed early to let Alex and David have some alone time. The two of them spend a couple hours drinking and unwinding. David wants to tell Alex the story of how he discovered the affair: he was going through her things, looking for an address, when he saw lewd pictures of her that he never took.
Soon, Alex goes to bed, but David can't sleep. He thinks things are following him, and if he goes to sleep, he will allow these “creatures” to enter the house, where they will overcome him. So he spends most of the rest of the movie staring out windows and peering through doors, looking for things that only exist in his mind. If we're "lucky", we get to see some of the creatures he “sees” (the first one, which looks like something out of a “Silent Hill” game, is actually really creepy and well done; the rest are stupid as shit), but most of the time, he is just waiting for things that never arrive. Just like viewers who are watching this expecting some "entertainment".
Apparently, Alex and Kate can't hear their guest opening and closing doors all night, because the first night he's left alone to his own devices, David just moves around the unfamiliar house as loudly as possible. In the morning, David asks Alex if he heard anything, but Alex didn't. Way too gradually, Alex and Kate start noticing David's increasingly-erratic behavior, which was clearly irrational from the very beginning. Then a formula emerges: He sees something, and Alex thinks he does, too. They run and scream. Kate asks Alex what he saw, but Alex isn't sure that he even saw anything. The whole movie makes it pretty clear that everything merely exists in his head, because no one else ever sees or hears anything for sure, which kind of eliminates the need for a viewer at all.
Dialogue mainly consists of David saying, “They're trying to get in,” or “They're in the house,” or some similar variation involving “they” being somewhere close to “them”. Tensions flare. A random pregnant girl who lives upstairs makes an appearance for no reason, and then dies a grisly death, again for no reason. It's as if the filmmakers know they've made a shit film and are trying to keep the audience awake with random violence. It doesn't work. Meanwhile, David opens and closes a few more doors.
Finally, everything boils over, and that's when, instead of watching characters open and close doors and get frightened about nothing, we get to watch them scream and run from nothing, something made even more agonizing because David looks incredibly stupid when he screams, his large, gaping mouth seemingly open wide enough to swallow a watermelon whole. Kate constantly asks Alex what he saw, and Alex constantly says he doesn't know. Lights go out. Fuck it, I'm done.
I made a vow to reserve the “zero” point rating solely for films that, in my eyes, have no redeeming value whatsoever. For example, ones that feature graphic gore solely for the sake of gore, and have absolutely no artistic merit. So far, the only film that (I have reviewed and that) has met my criteria is A Serbian Film. I hate this film every bit as much as I hate that one, but in sticking with my own rules, I have to at least give it half a point for that cool first monster. And that's all it gets, because the experience of watching this movie—something I have done twice, including once in a theater—is an experience no one should have to suffer through at all.
You know, I give the film industry a lot of shit for allowing mediocre directors undeserving of attention the opportunity to thrive, often while ignoring the talents of truly great filmmakers. But when I see that Andrew Cull and Steve Isles, the two co-directors responsible for helming this worthless garbage, haven't written or produced another project since...well then I have to acknowledge that at least every once in a while, the industry gets something right.
RATING: 0.5/10
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