It's Laughing at Him
When his wife died in a car accident, documentary maker Michael King (Shane Johnson) lays the blame at a clairvoyant who had advised her that her big acting break was coming and so they cancelled plans to go abroad. Bitter over the death and angry that a hokum clairvoyant did this Michael sets out to make his next documentary with himself as the focus as he seeks out to prove their is no after life, no God and no devil. It leads him to meet a variety of people from devil worshippers to demonologists but whilst coming to the conclusion it is all a bunch of hokum something he can't explain starts to change and control him.
For about 30 minutes "The Possession of Michael King" had me and then it lost me, struggling to constantly keep hold of my attention. Why? Well during the first 30 minutes we get the set up with Michael in a jokey manner saying that he is going to prove that the super natural is a load of hokum with him being the test subject. And it does have this almost cavalier vibe which makes you think this is going to be both interesting and entertaining. The thing is that after the first one or two encounters it starts to feel a little repetitive and watching Michael journal his days experiences directly to the camera just doesn't grip you or at least not until things really kick off, so to speak.
But you see that is very much the crux of the movie because we are meant to watch Michael slowly coming to deal with the fact that something very strange is going on as the title suggests it is his possession by a demon. Now there are some nice parts to this mostly because Shane Johnson sells all aspects of his character from the initial disbeliever to the one who is possessed as well as the in-between as he tries to comprehend what it going on. But for all the nice paranormal effects and observational camera work it hits a middle ground which loses you and then it is only when the paranormal shit hits the fan that it starts to get you back because it is visually wild.
What this all boils down to is that "The Possession of Michael King" is a movie with some good ideas and a nice central performance but the finished product is simply not strong enough to sustain your attention for its duration ending up becoming one of those movies which in between the big horror scenes has some dialogue heavy filler.
