A few years ago in the horror genre paranormal films dominated the market, before zombie flicks, while lately it’s been possession movies, from The Nun (2018) which caused some unrelated spin-offs to the Annabelle series, face it the Devil is popular. It has gotten to the point where some religious commentators have slammed the movies, because they possess the audiences, and telling them God can’t defeat evil, oh please – it’s all entertainment. Now we come upon a very silly, supposedly found footage movie, that normally falls into our DOA files, however due to the newness I will refrain from that inclusion. This movie The Possession Diaries was directed by Juan Frausto (Kidnapped Souls [2012]) who also wrote the script with Rich Wealthy.
It starts sort of, from left field with an unknown woman screaming and then quickly focuses on a video diary of a scared young woman Rebecca (Katherine Munroe) who’s sharing her problems with viewers on YouTube all in pleading with them for help, as the Devil, not merely a demon is trying to possess her. The storyline, of what there is really gets worse, its amazing, that the Devil has a great phone plan, to call from Hell as he actually calls her on a landline number, wait who has them, aside from say podcasters or businesses. He threatens her on the camera while on YouTube, by voice only, she merely sobs away, in the fakest manner possible. It would be funny if not for the wooden acting making the scene atrocious. Frausto makes a fleeting attempt to build some sort of suspense, with her looking into the camera, but then falls apart as the angles don’t match with the concept of found footage versus narrative storytelling. Rebecca makes claims that three days earlier she played with a Ouija board, and the Devil is after her, but in that time she met with a psychologist (take about a fast appointment), even spoke with a priest all in that quick amount time, no meds but confirmed it’s the Devil. It is very difficult to understand the plot, as not much of one exists, trying to understand what Rebecca is reacting to is equally tough, yes it’s set at Halloween, where this all happens in her apartment (sort of) in her bedroom, she never greets them at the front door, for that fact she never leaves her room. This approach limits entertainment, and struggles hard for the young actress in her first role, especially as the lead on-screen for 97% of the time by herself, aside from so-call spooky occurrences. Other characters enter and leave without any true introductions, the killings are all off-screen, all squandered opportunities just like this entire movie.
One of the biggest complaints comes either the pacing is off, or storyline is full of holes, if Rebecca is fearful of The Devil and haunting activity why is her room decorated for Halloween, whatever the case it doesn’t matter, nothing else does throughout the lackluster production. As noted the squandered actors, for example Rebecca’s Aunt Peggy played by Eileen Dietz, a staple in the horror genre, recently starred in Lake Alice (2017), and Noel Gugliemi (Basement Jack [2009]), another accomplished actor given a cameo role of Detective #1, first a pitiful character, give him a name or something, second looking at body of work as an actor you toss him aside. Overall the movie appears quite amateurish, there’s no motivation, likely due to the weak script, in addition the effects both visual and sound, fall far below the low-end of the spectrum for low budgets.
It truly has been a while since I’ve seen an awful movie, not that it’s so-bad-its-good, it’s just terrible, there’s just so many issues wrong with The Possession Diaries, simply not worth the time or effort to attempt to watch this production, thoroughly incomplete on every level, no scares nothing frightening. If you want to seek something with computers, chatrooms, and/or found footage, seek out E-Demon (2018) or #Screamers (2016).
https://thepossessiondiaries.com/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6408924/
IMDb Rating: 2.4/10
Baron’s Rating: 2.0/10