Ava’s Possessions

What happens to your life after you’ve been possessed by evil demons and carried out a murderous rampage? Ava’s Possessions aims to answer that question.

Have you ever watched a movie where someone is possessed by a demon and then they run amok all over town, eating people, having sex with hookers and generally spreading terror in the community? Those movies usually end with the possessed party being exorcised and going on their merry way. But what really happens to them? In a lot of cases, these possessed people have killed others and committed some serious felonies. Is there no comeuppance for these people? Do they just go home and eat a burger and then go to work on Wednesday and never have anything happen?

2015’s Ava’s Possessions answers these questions, by being a movie that takes place after a woman (Ava) has been exorcised. It turns out these people are given three options: they can go to trial, they can go to the loony bin, or they can attend a support group for people who have been possessed but are recovered and continue that until the group leader deems them fit to be released into society.

Not a bad option, all things considered.

The movie follows Ava as she tries to put her life back together and complete all the homework assigned to her by the group leader. She makes amends with her family members, whom she terrorised and mutilated over her month long possession. She tracks down the people she hurt in an attempt to apologize to them. These attempts are met with various degrees of success, with some people running in terror, other attacking her, one guy starts stalking her and a pimp who speaks entirely in the third person tries to shake her down for money owed.

As Ava works her way towards freedom from her spiritual visitor (the d-word is not allowed) she discovers that were was more going on in her missing month than she realized. People are stalking her, someone else is trying to kill her, and a disproportionate number of people are trying to have sex with her. It all culminates in a pretty well executed double twist ending that both entertains and satisfies.

The plot, characters, and execution of the story are less impressive than the subject matter that the flick tackles however. Just the fact that someone made a movie that takes place in the generally uninteresting aftermath of exciting events is pretty cool. Often when this is done, if is a sequel that ends up being a crappy rehash of the first movie and the survivor either relapses into possession or is killed off early as a huge middle finger to the audience.

The mystery involving the stalkers and the murder are actually far less interesting than the scenes where Ava is trying to go back to her old life. She tries to go back to work, but feels her coworkers are being insensitive to her ordeal and treating her possession as a joke — it’s clever and not something you see every day. The scenes where she makes amends with her family -her mom in particular, whose eyeball Ava gouged out- and friends who were understandably uncomfortable around her were also great as they shine a light on what the real impact a full on demonic possession can have on someone’s life. Work, friends and family are all altered due to supernatural circumstances and Ava’s Possessions presents them in a very thought provoking and entertaining way.

It is not every day a silly quasi-comedy horror flick leaves me considering the nature of my favourite genre, but this one did the job. It was really cool to see a thoughtful and detailed view of what the possessed would have to go through in order to get their lives back. It is significantly deeper than just showing someone in an asylum, drooling thorazine all over themselves or showing up as a born again. It really puts a fun spin on what would happen to your life if one of the many dukes of Hell took up residence in your soul and caused you to embark on a hedonistic and murderous rampage.

Tags: ava's possessions review, horror movies, netflix gems, netflix recommendations

About the Author

Brando Quiring is an aspiring writer and all around good guy whose interests include giant robots, things that go bump in the night, spicy food, and smaller robots. He believes that through his studies of life around him and his contributions to it, he will some day save the world.