Some things can’t be redone: Remaking ‘Possession’ is a terrible idea
For years, remakes have emerged to varying degrees of success, becoming a mainstay of Hollywood. While many have become popular and better known than the original, such as Scarface, some have crashed and burned, like Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy. Scarface worked because Brian De Palma used a substantial budget to create a modernised epic take on one man’s indulgent rise and fall, taking the story from the 1930s version and turning it into extravagant blockbuster material.
However, with Oldboy, there wasn’t enough time between the 2003 original and the 2013 remake, which also removed the shocking elements of Park’s version to create a watered-down, soggy English-language interpretation. Clearly, remakes can sometimes work, usurping their predecessor or becoming just as good. The key is creating something that possesses features unique from the original while retaining the elements that made the first film so good. You can’t make Oldboy without the same intensely violent scenes – it just doesn’t perform.
Now, there’s been news of a remake of Possession on the horizon, the classic ‘80s horror starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani. Directed by Andrzej Żuławski, the film has become a cult favourite, with certain clips from the movie even making their way onto apps like TikTok as meme fodder. The image of Adjani wearing a blue dress, swinging shopping bags and writhing around the subway floor screaming – before spewing white liquids from several orifices – is instantly recognisable. It’s a distressing scene that encapsulates the brilliance of Adjani’s performance. She was subbed for an Academy Award nomination for her stunning portrayal of a woman struggling through a messy divorce, although she did win ‘Best Actress’ at the 34th Cannes Film Festival.
It’s a performance that is so intense – clearly demanding Adjani to give herself over to the character – that it’s hard to imagine anyone else coming close to her in a remake. According to the director, “When she saw the film. She tried to commit suicide – took a shaver with two blades and cut her wrists.” The role completely exhausted her, and Neill has also stated that he found filming incredibly intense, too, questioning whether he would star in something so “extreme” again. The film is relentless; just watching it from the comfort of your home is enough to leave you feeling knackered.
The film follows Adjani’s Anna and Neill’s Mark as they go through a divorce, putting each other through the wringer. There are plenty of scenes of domestic violence, with their arguments culminating in them cutting themselves with an electric knife or beating each other. Both parties do heinous things, with Anna even leaving their young son home alone for several days, neglecting him in favour of a new lover. The movie takes a supernatural turn when a bizarre creature is discovered in Anna’s flat, transforming the film from a psychological horror into something even more strange and terrifying. Anna and Mark both commit murders as the plot descends into hellish capacities. Doppelgängers play a vital role, too, creating an uncanny atmosphere that heightens the horror at play.
Żuławski’s film is brilliant, albeit distressing to watch. It’s hardly casual viewing, demanding us to stay with him as we watch a series of aggressive arguments unravel, with the characters’ behaviour getting more and more violent. Few filmmakers have attempted to create a film about divorce that is so horrific – Marriage Story is nothing compared to this. The amount of frankly uncomfortable scenes makes Possession a rare kind of film – few of us will watch something more unrelenting than this. So why – and how – is this being remade?
The recent news has revealed that Parker Finn, who directed Smile, has signed onto the project, with Robert Pattinson co-producing with him. It has not been confirmed if Pattison will be starring in the film yet, but it seems likely. Smile was pretty well-received, but it’s not exactly as complex as the genre-blurring Possession. Still, with Pattinson on board, the project has potential due to the actor’s penchant for more experimental and shocking cinema, having starred in movies like High Life and The Lighthouse in recent years.
If anyone’s going to star in a Possession remake, Pattinson seems like a good choice, but fans of the original have been left wondering why it needs to be remade in the first place. The movie is so perfect already, full of unreplicable performances and an uncomfortable atmosphere defined by a divided Berlin, with the wall in the film symbolising the couple’s breakdown.
There are so many essential components to this film that would be lost in a remake, from the specific period of time in which it was made to its reliance on practical effects and the stunning performances given by the actors. The problem is, even with incredible actors playing the couple in a remake, they’d be in constant comparison to Neill and Adjani, whose performances are so breathtaking that it’s simply impossible for anyone else to do a better job than them to embody their characters.
Hollywood has notoriously butchered remakes of movies from other countries in the past, from City of Angels (inspired by Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire) to The Wicker Man. When an original is so good, why try and replicate it? It is clear that studios and filmmakers who are interested in remaking movies (that are already perfect) are hoping that a new audience will be drawn to the film – which won’t require any original thinking since the storyline already exists.
There’s a chance that the movie will earn a decent amount of money due to the fact that Possession fans will likely watch the remake, whether that be out of genuine interest or spiteful curiosity, as well as those who aren’t familiar with the original. Thus, it all feels a little disingenuous. A remake certainly won’t capture the same essence as the 1981 movie, and even if it turns out to be a good movie, it’ll still exist under the shadow of a better film – a decades-old horror classic with a devoted fanbase. Possession should simply be left alone – we need more original stories if we want to keep the horror genre fresh and innovative.
