The Possessed

中邪

China, 2016, colour, 16:9, 110 mins.

Director: Ma Kai 马凯.

Rating: 3/10.

Low-budget horror, shot in fake-documentary style, about two student film-makers and a possessed woman in a remote Shandong village.

STORY

A town in Shandong province, near Ji’nan city, northern China, Nov 2015. Ding Xin (Dong Tianwen) and his kind-of girlfriend Liu Meng (He Jia), both students at Ji’nan University, are making a documentary about fortune tellers, with Liu Meng as the presenter. After interviewing various fortune tellers whom they don’t take seriously, they eventually track down the well-known Aunt Wang (Feng Danju), whom everyone says is genuine and who can perform the háirén 还人 ceremony in which she can extract a demon and send it back to hell. They interview Aunt Wang and her husband-cum-manager Wang Qingkun (Wen Zhongxue). That night Ding Xin uses a pinhole camera hidden in a packet of cigarettes to secretly film Liu Meng naked in her room; she is furious at him when she finds out. Next day Ding Xin and Liu Meng accompany the Wangs to a remote village, Gangziwang, where a man, Chen Daqing (Zhao Shuda), has hired Aunt Wang to help his widowed younger sister, Chen Li (He Yuanyuan), who’s been having fits since the death of her husband. Aunt Wang diagnoses Chen Li as possessed by the evil spirit of a hedgehog and says she needs to perform the háirén ceremony as soon as possible. Everyone stays overnight in the Chens’ sprawling house, and Liu Meng noisily demands a separate room from Ding Xin. Next morning Ding Xin and Liu Meng inspect Chen Li’s room, where they find a baby doll on her bed. Aunt Wang starts the ceremony but then Chen Li suddenly freaks out and attacks her. Unsettled, Aunt Wang makes her excuses and says they must leave for the long drive back; she assures Chen Daqing that Chen Li will be alright, and he pays her. However, they’re forced to spend another night there when their car gets a puncture. During the night Ding Xin and Liu Meng spy on the Wangs via the pinhole camera he earlier planted in their room; they listen as the couple argue and Wang Qingkun demands a divorce and a share of their considerable earnings over over the years. During the argument, it seems that they may have once murdered a client. Next day Chen Li is calm; but she tells Liu Meng to be sure to leave before nightfall for her own safety.

REVIEW

Two university students making a film about fortune-tellers get involved in a creepy case in The Possessed 中邪, a low-budget horror movie done in fake-documentary style. First-time writer-director Ma Kai 马凯 has admitted that one of his influences was the 1999 US indie The Blair Witch Project, though there’s no “found footage” background story and the whole film has a much more modest, almost improvisational feel, punctuated by comic moments as the two students play around. At almost two hours it’s way too long, and not consistently creepy enough, to sustain interest, though it does deliver in the final stages, if rather hurriedly and chaotically. Ma has since made the more conventional comedy-horror To Be Continued 了不起的夜晚 (2023).

Without any credit titles, the film plunges straight into the “story” as the two student film-makers interview various fortune-tellers before tracking down the most famous one in town, Aunt Wang. After interviewing her and her husband-manager, they end up accompanying them to a remote village to investigate a case of demonic possession. The whole film is meant to be made up of footage shot by the pair, who have two video cameras and a pinhole “spy” camera – though occasionally it’s not clear how some footage can have been shot. The action-filled final night appears to be deliberately messy but is also too prolonged, given its thin content; the explanatory coda that ends the film could be clearer.

The lively, often jokey playing by He Jia 何佳 (as the mouthy, mercurial presenter) and Dong Tianwen 董天文 (as the infantile, giggly director) helps to sustain things during the first hour or so, and only Wen Zhongxue 文中学, as the fortune-teller’s slimy husband-manager, is equally outgoing. (Dong went on to play the tiny role of the d.p. in To Be Continued.) As the fortune-teller herself, Feng Danju 冯丹菊 – then in her early 30s and the only non-amateur in the cast – has a strong, mostly restrained presence that fits the character but doesn’t dominate things as she should.

The film was shot during 18 days in Nov 2015 on a budget of RMB50,000, largely amassed by Ma from doing various jobs in the film industry, including working as an extra at Hengdian studios, south of Shanghai. Most of the cast and tiny crew were also Hengdian extras, friends who worked for free. After the film premiered in a 110-minute version (reviewed here) at the First Film Festival, Xining, China, in summer 2016 (see poster, left), Ma prepared a tighter, “more fast-paced” 95-minute version, which was eventually passed for theatrical release and set to open on 4 Apr 2018. However, it was pulled a few days before that – reportedly not because of censorship problems (as the film had already been okayed) but because the marketing played up paranormal events that had supposedly taken place during shooting.

The film has been spoken of in the same breath as another indie production, Resurrection 吾神 (2018), but apart from having similar stories of exorcism they’re two very different movies, and Resurrection the superior work.

CREDITS

No presenting or production company credited.

Script: Ma Kai. Photography: Peng Mingwei. Editing: Ma Kai. Music: none. Art direction: uncredited. Sound: uncredited.

Cast: He Jia (Liu Meng), Dong Tianwen (Ding Xin), Zhao Shuda (Chen Daqing, Chen Li’s elder brother), Wen Zhongxue (Wang Qingkun, Aunt Wang’s husband), He Yuanyuan (Chen Li), Feng Danju (Aunt Wang), Xie Yinmei (pancake-stall owner), Liu Ronghui (fortune teller), Wang Dandan (patient), Sun Deqiang (patient’s husband).

Premiere: First Film Festival (Competition), Xining, China, 23 Jul 2016.

Release: China, tba.