Recommended highly by horror movie fans in this Facebook group that I am a member of The Possession of Michael King is a 2014 American found footage horror movie which is also the directorial debut of David Jung who also wrote the script. The movie stars Shane Johnson as Michael King along with Ella Anderson, Cara Pifko, Tomas Arana & Julie McNiven.
Michael King is an atheist film maker who decides to make his next project a documentary on the supernatural and to disprove the existence of god & the devil. Already a non believer he is spured on by the accident that cost his wife Samantha’s life, leaving him to raise their young daughter on his own with help from his sister Beth. His first interview is with a psychic who he confronts as giving false readings and hope to her customers. He reveals to the psychic that she had done a reading for his wife and told her that she would get a big break in her acting career. This prompted Samantha to postpone their trip to Europe. The break never happened and while the family was at a picnic at the park, she went to get something from the car and as she dropped her keys she runs into a car that couldn’t stop in time to avoid hitting her. The pychic asks him to leave.
He then speaks to a Priest about exorcisms, ofcourse which are always denied when in front of camera and to a man who claims he prayed to God with no response, and got better results praying to the Devil. Eventually, he ends up in a basement, on LSD, tied up in part of a Satanic ritual by a satanic couple. He visits a cemetery and has himself dosed with a toxic drug that induces a near death stage by a mortuary man who is also a chemist. This is one freaky incident and that’s when things start to wrong for Michael. He is visited by all sorts of demons who want to posses his body and soon the changes start happening. He become possessed and starts doing weird things. He kills the family dog, although he doesn’t know that he did it. He goes to his sister’s room at night as she sleeps and puts his hand in her crotch and the camera (which he is holding while possessed) shows a demonic looking Michael enjoying it). He loses sleep and is unable to concentrate. His work suffers as does his relationship with his family and his sister takes little Ella to her friend’s house for a few days. Michael tries to reach out for help but gets none from the priest or the satanic couple and the mortician has him thrown out for disrupting his work.
Finally Michael faced with the reality of being possessed is sitting disheveled in his house when his sister visits and brings Ellie along. As Ellie goes upstairs a possessed Michael strangles his sister to death and then stalks his young daughter. She hides in the closet but is caught by him but his wife’s spirit reaches out and gets Michael to snap out of the possession for a few moments, just enough for him to take control and jump out the window – killing himself and also ending the demon’s possession. At the end of the movie is when we see how Samantha dies.
Good little film with some awesome acting by Shane Johnson who gives a rather compelling performance. And that is vital as the entire movie hinges on him as he is the main focus; Beth is always shown at a distance and her face is never focused upon. Still the scares are cliches and you can pretty much tell what’s going to happen. I’ll give it a 7 outta 10 more for the performance of Johnson.