Once a month, Kelly dares Jessica to watch a film surrounding the monthly theme. These challenges are meant to scare, or unsettle, Jessica, and broaden her horror horizons.
KELLY:
I really had to get creative for this month's challenge since we are reading/discussing Grady Hendrix's novel We Sold Our Souls for the podcast. So the month's overall themes are: selling your soul to the Devil for fame/fortune, heavy metal, and just general horror literature. Hendrix has released novels about possession, haunted retail stores, vampires and horror paperbacks so I reached deep into the horror genre and I came out with the weirdo 1981 film Possession. I personally don't care for this film despite some incredible performances by Sam Neill and Isabella Adjani, but I thought it would be right up Jessica's alley. It won't scare her but I think it relays some creepy, cosmic horror imagery quite well. Let's see what she thinks of it!
JESSICA:
This movie! This movie! I LOVED IT! As I said in my Instagram reaction stories over at our Spinsters of Horror account (please follow if you don't already!), if Lovecraft and Clive Barker had a child it would be this movie. I was engaged with the film throughout it's two hour runtime just trying to figure out what was happening. At times it played out like a really intense dark drama with some VERY visceral emotional reactions to the end of a marriage; then the murders start to happen and the reveal of the tentacle like creature -- WHOA! I was also entranced by both the performances of Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani. The scene of her losing her mind in the tunnels then to have a 'miscarriage'- I could not turn away. This was a great pick for this month's challenge and a film I would love to add to my collection.
Note: Thank you again to Brett for helping us obtain a copy!