Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Possession of David O'Reilly


People told me that this movie was great, so I expected great, and I was let down, but this movie isn't as horrible as I thought it was back when it was pissing me off this morning, and it isn't as bad as I was prepared to tell you it was when I was first writing this review in my head.  The description of this movie calls it a "shockumentary" about a man who is haunted by demons who goes to stay with his friends and brings the demonic activity to them, but pretty much everything about that description is false.  "Shockumentary" implies that this is one of those "found footage" movies, and that isn't the case (though the camera does stick to our characters closely in the documentary style).  The man and wife who are the central characters here have just moved into a new house when one night their friend David stops by at an ungodly hour with a sob story about his wife cheating on him.  David stays with the couple for a few days, and over the course of those days, things begin to get scarier and scarier as David becomes more convinced that demons are trying to get him.

This is one of those movies where everything is ambiguous.  I counted at least five different plausible explanations for what could have been going on in the movie (well. plausible if you believe supernatural things can and do happen, which in the case of this movie, a good argument can be made either way I think) and a lot of people seem to be in disagreement about what happens during the frustratingly ambiguous ending.  I changed my mind about three times before I settled on my own interpretation of what happened here, but I think other interpretations could be equally valid, and I just don't care enough about the movie to spend time arguing about it, really, but I do think the movie is an interesting little feature that gets people talking, so I guess it's not bad.  I might even watch it again someday.

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