Repossessed Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Repossessed Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 23, 2025

Bob Logan's "Repossessed" (1990) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary with Bob Logan and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Get me out of here. This place and these people have gone mad.

Only a few tiny tweaks easily would have transformed Bob Logan’s Repossessed into one of The Naked Gun sequels, and no one would have questioned the legitimacy of this film. Here’s what these tweaks would have looked like:

Father Mayii (Leslie Nielsen) begins describing his relationship with Nancy Aglet (Linda Blair), and, as it is revealed that the Devil can easily move in and out of her body, Detective Frank Drebin reappears. Drebin is on the case, tracking down the bad guy who drugs and makes Aglet behave unhinged, convinced that he is a mortal. At the right time, Father Mayii then takes off his clerical suit and becomes Drebin. Or, all of the mad drama that is unleashed in Repossessed could have been tweaked to appear as one of Drebin’s regular nightmares. After a long day of chasing and arresting baddies, Drebin falls asleep and faces the Devil, recalls some of their previous battles, and then wakes up. Voila.

In Repossessed, Logan and Nielsen still treat Father Mayii as if he is seventy percent Drebin, but he is not the biggest attraction, which is the biggest reason its vibe, while in some ways similar to that of The Naked Gun films, is still quite different. Also, in Repossessed, virtually all of the spoofing targets William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, which is unquestionably a self-limiting choice because, after a while, a lot that happens becomes easy to predict. (For reference, Drebin’s antics were all over the place, so they were frequently surprising). The other questionable and ultimately underwhelming relationship is between the spoofing and Father Broher (Anthony Starke), who is substantially younger, utterly clueless, and often very oddly serious. Father Broher dominates the first half, so it is only after he asks Father Mayii to help him defeat the Devil that the laughs from the spoofing become as effective as the ones from The Naked Gun films.

Blair tends to be funny. However, there are several sequences where she also makes her character look a tad more serious than she should have been. The same cannot be said about Ned Beaty, who plays a corrupt televangelist, regularly staging events where the Devil is defeated before rolling cameras and for the pleasure of his utterly brainwashed fans. Beauty is very much in his element, and the only other actor who matches perfectly what Nielsen does so well.

In addition to spoofing The Exorcist, Repossessed casually goes after Rocky, Rambo III, The Wizard of Oz, and even George Lucas and Tomlinson Holman’s THX system. While not terrible, these segments look very dated now, and a couple even somewhat tedious.

Ultimately, Repossessed neither impresses nor disappoints. It is an underdeveloped, somewhat mismanaged project that probably sounded pretty good on paper and, after Nielsen committed to it, revealed even better potential to the people who funded it. Today, the easiest way to defend it is to describe it as a nostalgia fix. It has some funny moments, several of them of the kind that the ‘80s are remembered for, so it is alright to see at the end of a long and exhausting day.

Repossessed Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Repossessed arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from an older but very nice organic master, supplied by StudioCanal. Indeed, while the film could have a slightly fresher appearance, on my system, all visuals looked very good, a few close-ups even excellent. The limitations of the current master are noticeable in select darker areas, where some finer details and shadow nuances could be more convincing, and ideally, grain exposure should be a tad more consistent. However, there are no traces of any problematic digital corrections, so even these areas still look very, very good. Color balance is convincing. All primaries and supporting nuances are properly set, ensuring that the film has a proper period appearance. A few could be lusher, but I liked what I saw on my system a lot. Image stability is excellent. I noticed several tiny blemishes, but there are no large and distracting cuts, marks, debris, warped or torn frames to report. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Repossessed Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

While viewing Repossessed, I did not encounter any troubling anomalies to report in our review. However, there are a couple of areas where it feels like some rebalancing work can be done to ensure that dynamic intensity is as good as it can be. The lossless track performs as well as it should. This is clearly an inherited limitation. The dialog is always clear and very easy to follow.

Repossessed Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - in this exclusive audio commentary, writer and director Bob Logan shares plenty of interesting information about the similarities between Father Mayii and Frank Drebin (the character Leslie Nielses plays in The Naked Gun) and why they were intentional, the quality of humor and why some of it was targeted by the critics, the lensing of key sequences, and the film's reception. There is a hilarious comment about Sean Penn, who is mocked in Repossessed because of his 'interesting' history with the papparazzi.

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered vintage trailer for Repossessed. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

Repossessed Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bob Logan confirms the obvious -- Repossessed was carefully shot and polished to capitalize on the success of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! -- so it is not a coincidence that Father Mayii looks and sounds a lot like Detective Frank Drebin in a clerical suit. However, in Repossessed, Father Mayii is not the main attraction, so there is quite a bit of material where other important characters dominate, some of which are, unfortunately, pretty underwhelming. Repossessed is still worth seeing, but today it is most effective as a nostalgia fix. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from an older but good organic master, supplied by StudioCanal. RECOMMENDED.