As Mark follows Anna through the divided city, the film dissolves into a waking nightmare. Their arguments are not arguments but exorcisms. The apartment walls sweat. The camera spins like a trapped animal. And then... there is the apartment Anna keeps renting on the other side of town. Inside, she is harboring a grotesque, tentacled, unnamed thing .
Streaming on Shudder, AMC+, and available for digital rental on Apple TV / Prime Video. Buy the physical 4K if you can—the special features are a masterclass in madness. possession 1981
Possession is not a film for everyone. It is loud, hysterical, and deliberately alienating. It rejects the quiet dignity usually associated with dramas about divorce. Instead, it posits that the end of a great love is not a quiet death, but a violent, bloody severance. For those who can stomach its extremes, it remains a singular cinematic experience—a haunting look at the monsters we create when we try to possess another human being. As Mark follows Anna through the divided city,
Upon release, Possession faced heavy censorship, particularly in the UK and US, where it was labeled a "video nasty" and heavily cut. Distributors attempted to market it as a standard creature feature, removing the emotional nuance and leaving only the shocks. This damaged the film’s reputation for years. The camera spins like a trapped animal
In a single, unbroken take, Anna walks through a narrow, tiled tunnel, drops her shopping bags, and begins to convulse. Milk and blood pour from her body. She laughs, screams, and collapses in a spastic, orgasmic fit of despair. It is not acting. It looks like possession.
Andrzej Żuławski