7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Possessor follows an agent who works for a secretive organization that uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people's bodies - ultimately driving them to commit assassinations for high-paying clients.
Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tuppence Middleton, Andrea Riseborough, Sean Bean, Christopher AbbottHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 11% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
While it may strike some as being too facile to sum up Possessor with a "like father, like son" maxim, that description may well suffice as well as any for prospective audience members coming to this film without any foreknowledge about it, since in several salient ways this is very much like a David Cronenberg outing. It perhaps goes without saying, then, that Possessor's writer and director Brandon Cronenberg is indeed the son of David Cronenberg, and in this case the cinematic apple has not fallen far from that particular tree, with Possessor offering a glut of weird, often disturbing, imagery bound up in a plot that in more ways than one might be termed mind bending. One of those ways involves actual minds within the story, since the major sci-fi conceit of Possessor is that there is a top secret quasi-black ops kind of organization that has in fact perfected a "mind control" technique whereby a host is, yes, possessed by a controller connected via a (largely unexplained) VR-esque mask apparatus to an implant in the host's brain. That aspect isn't initially disclosed in Possessor, which instead opens with a chilling vignette featuring a "victim" of the mind control technique, a young black gymnast who ends up slaughtering a guy in just the first of several incredibly graphic scenes of violence the film employs.
Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080 Blu-ray. Additional 1080 screenshots are available in our
Possessor Blu-ray review.
Possessor is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Well Go USA with a 2160p transfer in 1.78:1. Captured with a variety of cameras and finished
at a 4K DI, this is a riot of styles and techniques, and as such needs to be accepted on its own decidedly heterogeneous terms. Quick cutting, skewed
perspectives, wildly fluctuating contrast and palette saturation all contribute to a viewing experience that doesn't provide consistent detail levels, at
least partially by design, but which is consistently arresting. One of the supplemental featurettes on the 1080 disc included in this package
gets into some of the "practical" ways that the palette was tweaked, and so I'm loathe to mention "grading" (at least in its traditional sense), but there
are a variety of colorings utilized here which are noticeably more nuanced than in the 1080 presentation. This includes the frequent orangish hues that
accompany some of Colin's scenes, but it's also quite apparent in the cooler, almost blue-green, tones that are featured in, to cite just one example,
Tasya's trip home. HDR also improves shadow detail in this version, including beefing up already nicely deep blacks. Fine detail is typically excellent,
sometimes to gut wrenching effect in some of the kill scenes. As with some of the other 4K UHD releases put out by Well Go USA that I've reviewed,
the intermittent banding that can afflict 1080 versions is noticeably absent here.
Possessor's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is a swirling, kaleidoscopic assault on the ears in much the same way the visuals are on the eyes. Voices (imaginary or otherwise) waft and crash, weird LFE-ish effects rumble on the low end, and all in all the sound design toes its own fine line between perceived reality and illusion. Some moments, as in the first debrief or even some later more or less straight ahead dialogue scenes, tend to relegate surround activity to passing ambient environmental effects, but when the possessions take place, things tend to become noticeably more immersive. Several of the significant kill scenes feature blades or other instruments of impalement, and the sound effects accompanying these scenes may be stomach churning for some. There are also some really cool if very subtle effects like the panning "waterfall" in the opening sequence (an effect which is discussed in some detail in one of the supplements on the 1080 disc). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly for the most part, but part of the sound design is intentionally obfuscatory, adding to the overall discombobulation the viewer (and listener) is feeling along with both Tasya and Colin.
The 4K UHD disc has no supplementary features, and the score above reflects that deficit. The 1080 disc also packaged with this release of course features the supplements detailed in our Possessor Blu-ray review.
There evidently is a "cut" version of Possessor Well Go USA is releasing, though according to our database it's only one minute shorter than this unredacted outing, so the differences may be fairly minimal. That said, I personally wish a little more had actually been included in even this uncut version to help contextualize things, especially with regard to the possessed characters. Otherwise, though, this is a bracing, startling and often quite graphically disturbing film that should certainly appeal to fans of David Cronenberg in particular. Technical merits are solid, and Possessor comes Recommended.
2019
Slipcover in Original Pressing
1999
2018
The Secret of Marrowbone
2017
2018
Collector's Edition
1984
1983
2016
2020
Slipcover in Original Pressing
2019
2016
2018
2009
2019
Director's Cut
1963
2016
2019
2014
15th Anniversary Edition
2008
2012