Possessions (2024)

Possessions Review

POSSESSIONS is a horror-thriller film directed and written by Brent Cote (Tainted). Starring Clive Standen (Vikings), Yeardley Smith (The Simpsons, Maximum Overdrive), and Mason Wells (2023’s The Wonder Years reboot), the film serves as a prime example of stale genre tropes and formulaic storytelling. It traverses already known territories without injecting any freshness or novelty into its recipe, thus leaving us with an uninteresting narrative, flat characters, and zero genuine scares.

After losing his wife, Pete (Standen) decides to move across the country with his young son Tyler (Wells). They settle in, buying Plaza Square Storage — a place where someone died under mysterious circumstances not too long ago. Pete hopes owning this business will bring him some joy again but little does he know that behind those metallic doors lies pure evil much scarier than what each unit owes in rent. While sorting out bills and digging through dark history of storage facilities becomes Pete’s daily routine; on the other hand, Tyler starts opening rented rooms where various possessions are kept only to get possessed by one such thing himself thereby leading to strange happenings around him coupled with wicked nightmares.Driven by her determination towards discovering truth behind behavioral problems displayed by young patient Tyler, enters therapist Dr.Young(played by Yeardley Smith) who unfortunately may have arrived too late.

Setting terror against the backdrop of a self-storage facility isn’t exactly original and has been done countless times before over past decade-and-a-half; examples include but not limited to titles like Lot 36(2022), Self Storage(2013), and Storage 24(2012) among others. What sets POSSESSIONS apart from these movies however is that it fails to grab viewers’ attention using similar concept packaged differently – instead opting for cheap jump scares which almost always don’t hit their mark due largely because director Brent Cote’s uninspired approach doesn’t do them justice. The screenplay itself relies too much on standard horror fare and thus fails to deliver any surprises or twists that would have kept the audience engaged throughout. Rather than capitalizing on its creepy atmosphere backed up with stylish direction, Cote takes us through boring motions where every reveal can be seen a mile away and each scare only produces groans as opposed to screams of terror.

Performance-wise also POSSESSIONS falls flat across board, beginning with top-billed Clive Standen – an actor capable of delivering strong work but here given nothing much else other than lifeless character lacking in depth or personality which makes it hard for viewers to care about what happens next as he sleepwalks from one situation into another without showing much interest either way. There’s no sympathy when someone behaves oddly due to strange choices made that prevent people from truly empathizing with such individuals because we don’t really know them well enough.Yeardley Smith and Mason Wells meanwhile offer forgettable supporting turns put together solely out of convenience for paycheck purposes more than anything else; they’re just as disposable as objects left behind inside storage lockers so unfortunately there’s not enough meat on these bones either.

All said done though, POSSESSIONS comes off as yet another forgettable dull horror-thriller movie. Don’t fear being trapped inside haunted storage facility — biggest scare offered by this film lies in being forced through ninety minutes worth of boredom interspersed with hackneyed scary flick tropes.

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