Dark Possession, which was originally titled Dark Summer, opens on officer Stokes (Peter Stormare) attaching an ankle monitor to the leg of Daniel (Keir Gilchrist), a consequence of cyberstalking and hacking his classmate Mona (Grace Phipps). His computer is taken away and his IP address is being tracked, but he gets around this by having his friends Abby and Kevin (Stella Maeve and Maestro Harrell) bring him a tablet computer and leeching off his neighbor’s wifi. And then Mona contacts him out of the blue and commits suicide with him watching on webcam.
And that’s when the action kicks off. Daniel is stuck in his house, which is apparently being haunted by the angry spirit of Mona. He and his friends band together to try and find a way to fend off the spirit’s attacks, all while being antagonized by his parole officer Stokes. They hold a séance, do research on the Internet, and try all sorts of things to defeat the spirit, in the process uncovering Mona’s deepest secrets. The film’s journey to its eventual truth is a tedious one, the narrative content with just delivering the requisite number of jump scares.
The best thing about the film is that it delivers a measure of atmosphere. The production makes pretty good use of what appears to be a pretty small budget, the movie getting a lot out of the limited locations. The direction turns limitations into assets, with lulls in the story still imbued with a slight sense of claustrophobia. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to make up for the lack of personality in the rest of the picture, and it isn’t enough to make these moments mean anything. There is some potential to this premise, which touches on a type of violence only made possible in the age of Internet. But in the end, it’s just another poltergeist picture.
And sadly, it isn’t a very good poltergeist picture. The film isn’t very good when it is actively trying to scare the audience. It relies too heavily on the kind of silly jump scares that just aren’t very effective in the long run. It reaches for the immediate reaction, and never builds to any greater effect. Eventually, the film builds to a twist that tries to give meaning to some of the things that happened in the previous acts. But by then it’s too little too late. It ends up overcomplicating what could have just been a simple fight to survive.
The acting is credible, though these characters hardly deserve such effort. Keir Gilchrist is all right in the lead role, though there’s hardly anything to it. Peter Stormare chews the scenery as Daniel’s parole officer, livening up every scene with his incongruous commitment to playing to the clichés of the character. Stella Maeve and Maestro Harrell are hobbled by playing characters that don’t really seem to have much defining them other than their need to help out the main character. Though their work is okay, they aren’t able to leave much of an impression.
Dark Possession is one of those movies that isn’t very long, but ends up feeling long anyway. There is certainly some skill involved in this production, but it’s all directed towards a story that never really finds its rhythm. It blows through a multitude of ideas, but in the end it settles for tired jump scares and a bunch of nonsensical twists.
My Rating:
