The Possessed is a made-for-TV horror movie from 1977.
1977 was not a huge year in filmmaking. Probably the most important movies released that year were Pumping Iron, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and Breaker! Breaker!
As a result, The Possessed was dropped into waters filled with voracious network TV viewers demanding entertainment. Did they get it?
Let’s see how The Possessed stacks up to other made-for-TV horror movies like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death and Snowbeast.
The Possessed
James Farentino, known for Blue Thunder (the TV series), The Final Countdown and stalking Tina Sinatra, stars as a disgraced priest who roams the country and battles evil. The beginning of the movie gives us a short superhero-type origin story.
After going through the motions of a church service, Farentino hits the back room to take a shot of booze. Moments later, he drives in a thunderstorm and crashes into an electric pole. The pole represents a cross. The accident is a metaphor for Farentino’s religious self destruction.
Just kidding. I’m guessing running into an electric pole was the cheapest, easiest accident to put on film at night and get the crew home to bed before Johnny Carson signed off.
Paramedics perform CPR on Farentino but pronounced him dead. Not so fast! Farentino appears in a dark place and hears a disembodied voice speak judgment.
“You have lost your faith. You have failed. You have fallen from grace. Your only hope is to seek out evil and fight that evil by whatever means is necessary.”
Farentino comes back to life, ready to kick evil’s arse. Maybe this movie is a prequel to Dead Alive, explaining who the Kung Fu priest was before he got zombified…
The Repossessed
Cut to a private girl’s school in Salem, Oregon. Joan Hackett, who we just watched in The Terminal Man, is the headmistress. Her partner is Claudette Nevins, who was active in a lot of TV shows and also appeared in a smattering of movies like Sleeping With the Enemy and Star Trek: Insurrection.
The most interesting thing about this school is that all the girls ride their bikes in the hallways. I’m beginning to think this is not a prestige kind of school. It is maybe more like a school where Tim Walz would show up to give a Powerpoint presentation called Tampons and You.
A couple of students are familiar, though. One is none other than Ann Dusenberry, who played Tina in Jaws II. Another recognizable face belongs to Diana Scarwid. She is tougher to place. She was Michelle Pfeiffer’s wacky friend in What Lies Beneath.
Oddly enough, What Lies Beneath will be mentioned again later…
The plot now begins to kick into gear. Occurrences of spontaneous combustion begin to happen on campus. The first instance involves Nevins. She is working on her typewriter when the paper bursts into flames. The next instance involves the curtains in a dorm room burning.
The Possessed Is Nine-Tenths Of The Law
Yet, the fires are not nearly as interesting as an odd scene that happens in between them. A gaggle of girls prank Dusenberry by smearing a mix of messy items into her mattress. The items include ketchup, shaving cream, shampoo and other things.
At one point, one girl asks, “What else should we use?”
“Foam,” another girl responds.
“What do you mean…foam?”
“You know…foam…”
This causes all the girls to laugh hysterically. What are they talking about? My guess is they are talking about spermicide. I could probably ask a number of women I know for confirmation. Yet, that creates a problem. That would require me speaking to women…
Eventually, a worser fire happens. Scarwid practices her commencement speech, and her robe becomes enflamed. As everyone panics, a teacher rushes in to save her.
That teacher is none other than Harrison Ford. The Possessed was one of Ford’s last small roles before hitting it big with The Frisco Kid in 1979.
I am immediately willing to bet ten LMO bucks that Ford’s character is having an affair with a student. He has that look about him, so smug. Not only is The Possessed a prequel to Dead Alive. It is also a prequel to What Lies Beneath!
The Possessed of Hannah Grace
When spooky things happen in The Possessed, the score occasionally sounds like someone hitting an anvil with a hammer. This makes one guess the composer is going to be cool, and that guesser would be right.
Leonard Rosenman did the soundtrack. He also worked on films like Rebel Without a Cause, Star Trek IV, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Race With the Devil. The Possessed also has one more trivia note regarding composers. Dusenberry is married to Brad Fidel, who is known for famously scoring Fright Night Part 2.
Jerry Thorpe directed The Possessed. Thorpe did not have a big career. His most recognizable credit is perhaps Day of the Evil Gun, starring Glenn Ford.
John Sacret Young wrote The Possessed. He is most known for China Beach. He probably got many thank you letters for bringing Dana Delaney to everyone’s attention.
While all that is interesting, it is time to get back to The Possessed. Frankly, the movie is starting to flounder. Let’s just power through it…
Farentino finally shows up to battle whatever evil is happening here. He mostly walks moodily around campus and gives a variation of the same speech numerous times.
“You think evil is rational. I can’t tell you it’s not, but I can tell you something. Evil strikes. It does strike, and it strikes randomly. No explanation. Maybe it has come here.”
I’m beginning to think Farentino is not the expert we hope him to be on this subject…
The Prossessed Cheese
Harrison Ford burns up. It is a fairly intense scene for network TV. If we had seen this movie in 2014, we would have been shocked to see a Harrison Ford character die like a little bitch. Alas, now we have seen such a thing and are worse for it…
Dusenberry also delivers a line that was surprisingly risqué for network TV.
“Let’s go to the back room, and I’ll teach you about the chicken and egg. Which…comes…first…”
She says this to Harrison Ford. You owe me ten LMO bucks. He was having an affair with a student. Not only that, Ford was also having an affair with the headmistress, Pratt.
With all of these horrible things going on, Farentino has little choice but to continue walking around campus and tell characters that evil makes no sense.
In the third act, Pratt takes a stab at doing a low-rent Linda Blair impersonation. Apparently, Ford breaking her heart and then having an affair with Dusenberry makes Pratt get possessed and burn things with the power of her demon mind.
No pea soup enters the proceedings. However, Pratt does spew nails in Farentino’s face, followed by what looks like regular tap water. Again, for network TV, all of this is a smidge more intense than expected.
Farentino cures Pratt by hugging her.
Then he jumps in a pool.
Then he disappears.
The Possessed Final Analysis
The haphazardness of The Possessed makes more sense when one realizes it is not really a genuine movie. It is a pilot. Warner Brothers had the idea of a character that travels the country and performs exorcisms on people.
In a vacuum, that’s not a bad concept. It’s a tried-and-true formula: a character running into new characters that need help each week, saving them and moving on. It was the same formula used by shows like The Incredible Hulk, The A-Team, Quantum Leap and even The Lone Ranger. Throw in a horror element, and you’re golden.
Ultimately, The Possessed has novelty value only. It is interesting to watch a rough draft of the concept. It is also fun to see Ford, Dusenberry, Pratt and Scarwid in early roles.
Farentino does what he can with the part. His performance is guarded and weary, and The Possessed does manage to generate some spooky ambiance. Unfortunately, that is all the script gives Farentino to work with. His character is a far cry from the inevitable comparison: Kolchak. Darren McGavin takes possession of that crown easily. Go watch The Night Stalker instead.
