VOD Review: Ava's Possessions (2016)

"Scares are not amongst Ava's Possessions."

Ever since The Exorcist premiered back in 1973, there have been an endless number of movies that have tried to tackle the topics of possession and exorcism. None of them have even come close to doing it as well as the William Friedkin classic does, but there have been some great ones along the way. There have also been plenty of half-assed, bad ones too.

Good or bad though, most possession movies tend to play out the same: and innocent is possessed or otherwise influenced by some nefarious Demon, they act all creepy (crawling on walls, bending over backwards), and then they're somehow saved by an exorcism. Or maybe they're not saved, but there's usually some sort of exorcism in there somewhere. There are of course variations on the theme, but for the most part, they play out in the same way, which makes them feel fairly routine.

With all of that considered, Ava's Possessions at least offers a really fresh twist on the usual possession flick by showing the aftermath of a Demonic ordeal, rather than the incident itself. It doesn't really pack all that much of a punch, Horror-wise, but hey, neither do most of the ones that are straight-up Horror either.

The movie opens with Artie Bucco (former owner of Vesuvio, before Tony Soprano blew it all to hell) exorcising a Demon from a girl. That girl, Ava, is shocked to learn that she was possessed, and turns to her family for support, who are all oddly asshole-ish about it. I guess it's true that possession really destroys families.

POOR AVA. DEMON WITHDRAWAL IS ROUGH.

To make things worse, she learns that she's about to be charged with assault, property damage, and possession (of narcotics), all stemming from the trouble that her Demonic visitor caused. Understanding that she's been possessed, the court offers her the option of attending Spirit Possession Anonymous, in lieu of jail time, which Ava gladly agrees to. It's a 10-step program that involves sharing feelings, talking things out, and literally confronting your Demons.

"CHAPTER ONE: YOUR SOUL BELONGS TO HIM NOW."

As Ava diligently attends her SPA meetings in an effort to come to terms with her ordeal and avoid jail time, she meets a creepy chick who actually wants her Demon to come back, because she really likes bad boys, Demonic or otherwise. Not being the brightest bulb in the lamp, Ava helps the girl to invoke the Demon, all while she tries to work her way through her own 12-step program. Of course, none of this leads to anything good for anyone.

"STEP 13 IS WHERE I EAT YOUR SOUL."

We've seen plenty of movies about possession and exorcism, but this might be the first one that's dealt primarily with what happens to the possessed once the Demons have been exorcised, the priests go home, and they're left to go back to their normal. That's a premise that we found fascinating, which is why it's such a letdown that it doesn't really get used to its full potential here.

The story takes place in a world where possession is a "real" thing that is a normal part of society, and yet the movie never really takes advantage of that, opting to focus more on wordy drama than it does tension and horrific events. The possession aspect of things could have been used to energize the movie, but instead sits there like a quiet plot device that never really gets its chance to guide the story.

I guess this movie is supposed to be a big metaphor for drug addiction, and even moreso, recovery, but it honestly felt more like an episode of Girls (HBO) to us. We kept wanting it to be scary, even a little bit, but early on it was obvious that the filmmakers chose to take the story down a darkly humorous path, rather than any sort of scary one.

NO LENA DUNHAM IN THIS ONE THOUGH, THANKFULLY.

On the plus side, the cast is solid in this one, with Louisa Krause carrying the movie admirably with her performance, and fellow castmates like William Sadler, Lou Taylor Pucci, Carol Kane, and Whitney Able (amongst others) giving her plenty of quality backup.

Overall, this is a movie that we would have loved a lot more if it had focused more on the horrors of possession, but one that was still good enough to be enjoyable, despite what we thought it was lacking.

DON'T GIVE US THAT LOOK. IT WAS A BIT LACKING!

There's very little blood in this one.

CREEPY.

There are some sexual themes that run through the movie, but none of it gets very explicit.

THIS IS ABOUT AS RACY AS THINGS GET.

The bottom line is that Ava's Possessions is a pretty solid Indie film, and an alright Horror flick. It didn't do a ton for me personally, but it's got a certain charm about it that will definitely appeal to fans of that kind of offbeat, Indie sensibility.

C+

Ava's Possessions is available now on DVD and VOD.

This movie is possessed by plenty of lovely ladies.