Wait, what?! Characters with motivations?! Interpersonal dynamics BETWEEN the characters?! Deliberate, focused pacing?! Overall themes?! Such luxuries! Imagine a modern movie having any one of those things, and now we're talking sci-fi. I might have some sympathy for the "downtrodden" writers of the Hollywood of today if a single one of them were capable of such BASIC STORYTELLING FUNDAMENTALS. I'm half kidding - but only half. Writing is by far the most important part of any movie, show, comic, play, book or, you know, STORY? Stories are what all of these things are. Visual design in movies these days is incredible. Narrative design has completely imploded and is a long-forgotten art. Even though we all KNOW that it's bad writing that makes a bad movie and good writing that makes a good movie. Literally everything else is secondary. Stumbling upon a rare treat like this only reiterates to me how bad we have it these days. The recent Pope's Exorcist comes to mind. Did that movie not fall right into the heaping pile of bland, unoriginal exorcism movies? With all those incredibly skilled actors, set-dressers, designers and photographers, the thing still vanished into the pile the instant the credits rolled. What happened to this genre? Why are they all the same now? That's right, you guessed it: WRITING! The quality and class of Possessed serves as a scathing (although inadvertent) indictment of today's absolute dross simply by basic comparison. I mean dude was a writer on Die Hard - that's all you need to know.
Review of Possessed
