Possession - The Dark Inside You

Life isn't exactly easy for sisters Hannah(Madison Davenport) and Em (Natasha Calis) right now. After the separation of their parents they are torn between the orderly everyday life with their mother Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and her new life partner Brett (Grant Show), and the rather chaotic weekends with their father Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The latter, while trying, keeps getting so distracted by his work that he loses sight of his daughters' real needs. But then Em seems to really blossom when she finds an antique box at a flea market that she proudly calls her treasure. At first her enthusiasm seems perfectly normal, but then the girl begins to act increasingly strange and aggressive. Clyde is convinced that Em's behavior is directly related to the box. As he researches the origins of the box, he comes across an old Jewish legend that says a spirit of the dead, called a dybbuk, is trapped in the box. In itself, the dybbuk would pose no danger - but Em has opened the box, making himself available to the spirit as a host body. Freeing Em from this demon seems almost impossible - especially since no one wants to believe Clyde.

With Possession - The Dark in You, director Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch) presents his second US work after his own Nightwatch remake with Ewan McGregor. Backed by genre specialist Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) as producer, Bornedal does his best to give viewers a creepy horror treat. In order for this to succeed, an interesting new facet has been added to the rather standard Von-Dämonen-Besessenes-Kind story by substituting the Jewish myth of the dybbuk and its exorcism for the exorcism usually used for the genre.

Bornedal succeeds very well in setting up some effective scare moments. However, these are surrounded by myriad genre clichés, making it hard for them to achieve their full effect. The story about the broken family and the father, who desperately fights for the affection of his children, is so poor in content that despite the solid performance of the actors and some atmospheric images, especially in the first half of the film often pure boredom dominates the action. Although the whole thing then picks up considerable speed and also has the one or other good shock effect to offer. But those who have already seen at least one possession film will truly not be blown away here.

This is a shame in that Bornedal has proven in the past, but especially with Nightwatch, how well he knows how to build suspense, surprise the audience and make them jump out of their seats with purposefully used shock moments. And that's exactly what should have been expected from Possession - Das Dunkle in dir. So the whole thing is indeed a solid scary movie with good actors and an engaging atmosphere. But more than a slight shiver is simply not possible with this tale. Therefore: only for viewers who do not regularly, but only occasionally like to get slightly creepy recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp