Rating: 
Summary: strange,weird...excellent!!!
Review: It's nothing like I've seen before. Very strange and very disturbing. A cult classic but not for the fainted hearted. Adjani's performance is breathtaking. Watch it! You'll see what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: whatever possessed me to buy this dvd?
Review: let's just get one thing straight before we begin. i'm an advocate lover of strange or weird films a general rule of thumb and am always looking for something a bit obscure so this one really is something special. easily, i could rate 5 stars because the performances here are outstanding considering the material they had to work with. isabelle adjani is simply a fantastic actress & manages to pull off one of the most impressive or raw performances i've seen in some time which is very impressive. there are fleeting moments during possession which rightfully deserve high praise & those are usually when ms. adjani graces the screen with her psychotic overtones or her unusual sensual charms. if you can get past the first twenty minutes or so of this film, probability suggests you'll be staying for the entire viewing whether you like or not. possession starts off extremely sluggish as we are constantly starving for a bit of gore or slime but instead we are offered a polanski-esque build-up of melodrama & suspense but are kept in the dark as to follow the hows & whys of everything going on around the dysfunctional marriage of sam neill & isabelle adjani. to make things interesting, adjani plays both the unfaithful wife & the lovingly gentle but sensual teacher of his young son. if this doesn't throw you off, there is bound to be something later on in the film which will definately mess with your head. before the first forty minutes is up, we find ms. adjani's character with her own apartment harboring some kind of slimy creature which she manages to protect at all costs. but why? are we to believe that she created this creature out of her complete anger and comtept in this crazy marriage of hers or what's the deal here? why is her character having intercourse with this tentacled beast in a scene which recalls something nasty right out of a classic cronenberg film? i can repect the need to restore cult classics, horror films, and other lost treasures for dvd so i'll tip my hat off to anchor bay & this director's cut is a triumph. you aren't going to understand everything this film puts on your plate but you'll have a squeamish great time nevertheless.
Rating:
Summary: whatever possessed me to buy this dvd?
Review: let's just get one thing straight before we begin. i'm an advocate lover of strange or weird films a general rule of thumb and am always looking for something a bit obscure so this one really is something special. easily, i could rate 5 stars because the performances here are outstanding considering the material they had to work with. isabelle adjani is simply a fantastic actress & manages to pull off one of the most impressive or raw performances i've seen in some time which is very impressive. there are fleeting moments during possession which rightfully deserve high praise & those are usually when ms. adjani graces the screen with her psychotic overtones or her unusual sensual charms. if you can get past the first twenty minutes or so of this film, probability suggests you'll be staying for the entire viewing whether you like or not. possession starts off extremely sluggish as we are constantly starving for a bit of gore or slime but instead we are offered a polanski-esque build-up of melodrama & suspense but are kept in the dark as to follow the hows & whys of everything going on around the dysfunctional marriage of sam neill & isabelle adjani. to make things interesting, adjani plays both the unfaithful wife & the lovingly gentle but sensual teacher of his young son. if this doesn't throw you off, there is bound to be something later on in the film which will definately mess with your head. before the first forty minutes is up, we find ms. adjani's character with her own apartment harboring some kind of slimy creature which she manages to protect at all costs. but why? are we to believe that she created this creature out of her complete anger and comtept in this crazy marriage of hers or what's the deal here? why is her character having intercourse with this tentacled beast in a scene which recalls something nasty right out of a classic cronenberg film? i can repect the need to restore cult classics, horror films, and other lost treasures for dvd so i'll tip my hat off to anchor bay & this director's cut is a triumph. you aren't going to understand everything this film puts on your plate but you'll have a squeamish great time nevertheless.
Rating:
Summary: Does it right
Review: Not an easy subject, not an easy movie but all in all it is a Great One, it is good directed and generally good released. Before watching it I expected a far lower product (also lead by some terrible opinions I read) but now I'm glad I bought it. It keeps you glued and also the monster is fairly done and seldom seen just like in the traditional horrors. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani work great, they are perfect for the role.
If you are open to original ideas you will enjoy it; has lurking horrors all over the time, a weird movie, different from the usual total horrors of modern times.
Also restored and fine released on DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Polanski Meets Cronenberg in EuroTrash Art Flick
Review: Possession is one of those rare films that once seen can be never forgotten. Whether you like it or not is another matter. A Deeply disturbing and thought-provoking piece, played by its cast at an unflinching fever pitch (Adjani and Neill seem to be shouting at each other through most of the film), Possession is a curious blend of several genres: art house, Grand Guignol, sexflick, spy thriller, psychological drama (a la The Ice Storm, although the marital chill here is much icier)...and more.Set in Berlin during the Cold War and filmed in English by Polish director Zulawski, we have here an outrageously sick tale (it remains banned in the UK to this very day) of an extremely 'paranoid' (or is he?) husband whose spying on his cheating wife takes him on a nightmare journey that involves espionage, doppelgangers and dream lovers, men in pink socks who could bring about the End of the World, and a truly Freudian many-tentacled creature (designed by Alien's Carlo Rambaldi) that is a monster classic out there with the best of them. Possession holds our attention much as a deformed exhibit in a circus sideshow does. Its stomach-churning set pieces (witness: the self-mutilation by electric knife; the miscarriage in the subway spewing forth buckets of blood and pus; images of drowning children; and the freakiest sex scene ever) although beautifully framed and lit, both transfix and repulse. Pretentious, preposterous, but, if the stomach can take it, high class pulp with lots of verve and energy. A kind of Polanski's The Tenant meets the body horror of Cronenberg, which, in my book, is a marriage in heaven. Heady, wonderful stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, unpleasant nonsense
Review: Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani are having big marital problems, which get increasingly nasty and obsessive. She shrieks hysterically and acts completely unreasonable, while he glares like a caged rat, yells, and slaps her around. They both slice themselves with an electric carving knife, and you wish they'd really go for it because you want these people to die about five minutes after the opening credits. Isabelle spends her days in a decripit, empty apartment where her lover - a bloody, slimy, tentacled thing - dwells. When men drop by, she kills them. In between, she and Neil babble pretentious things and make sure that something annoying is always happening on screen - Neil twists in his chair, Neil and Adjani's human lover Heinrich (who's a total freak) circle around each other as they argue, shelves get cleaned off noisily, there's spastic twitching, etc. - everybody needs Ritalin. Adjani has a laughing, screaming fit in the subway, jerking around until she has a miscarriage in a scene that goes on forever. She keeps body parts in the refrigerator and the weird creature (apparently some manifestation of her schizophrenia) keeps growing... and the viewer grows, as well - grows tired and wants to start screaming like the people onscreen. This is the kind of art film where just about everyone has at least one scene where they stumble along clutching at walls, and everyone's acting is so over-the-top that it's mind-boggling. Adjani, especially, chews so much scenery that you end up laughing at some of the scarier scenes. She probably had a hard time getting dates after this. On the plus side, the film looks great: director Zulawski has an eye for aesthetic composition and loves a moving camera and extremes of lighting, and the settings are all rich. It's an ambitious and beautiful-to-look-at film - too bad it doesn't make much sense and gets on your nerves with all the screaming... The DVD restores a lot of previously-unavailable footage and is very well-done, like the movie or not.
Rating:
Summary: Treebeard in turkey's clothing
Review: Sam Neil becomes entangled in a love triangle when he discovers his wife (Isabelle Adjani) is cheating on him with a guy called Heinrich... and some strange creature that looks like Treebeard from THE TWO TOWERS.
20 minutes into the movie Adjani is having a fit in the subway. This turns out to be because she is in labor with the aforementioned monster (a rather bloody scene).
There is one memorable scene of Adjani maiming herself with an electric carving knife, but minutes later Neill is doing the same, leaving the viewer in a state of confusion rather than shock.
Neil would probably like to forget this movie. It's so boring! It only gets an extra star because some sequences are imaginatively filmed. But what is the point of POSSESSION? Why does this movie even exist? Avoid it.
I know this review is lousy, but so is the movie. It's not worth the effort of even THINKING how to write a review.
Rating: 
Summary: Aimless, directionless, useless
Review: This film was a ridiculous waste of time and energy. There was no narrative to hold the scenes together. Characters were too weird and strange and violent. The whole thing seemed pointless. The only redeeming value to this film is Isabelle Adjani, who is beautiful beyond words. And the cover art and insert have some provocative images. Aside from that, SAVE YOUR MONEY.
Rating:
Summary: Aimless, directionless, useless
Review: This film was a ridiculous waste of time and energy. There was no narrative to hold the scenes together. Characters were too weird and strange and violent. The whole thing seemed pointless. The only redeeming value to this film is Isabelle Adjani, who is beautiful beyond words. And the cover art and insert have some provocative images. Aside from that, SAVE YOUR MONEY.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This is simply the most original thing I've seen on a screen. Zulawski creates his film, not as situational candy, but with the consideration and energy of raw confessional poetry. Posession does not even pretend to be mere entertainment or storytelling, but goes so far and successfully outside of convention one wonders that everyone isn't making movies like this. The dialogue alone has a lyrical beauty and rhythm rarely heard outside of the playhouse. In it's tense and deceptive opening moments, anyone who has ever sensed or seen the dark sides of love may feel as though they are being recognized for the first time. It should be made clear that, unlike so-called arthouse flicks, the viewer never feels the need to justify what's on the screen (The lame "It's supposed to be a nightmare." excuse for things that "don't make sense."). Posession's solid art stands without apology.
Many will whine (and have whined)that this movie does not follow tradition, but it gets away with it so staggeringly well, and moves into a vivid territory that, in a way, puts even the greatest plot-based movies to shame.
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