POSSESSION: UNTIL DEATH DO YOU PART (1987)

“The sensuality of BODY HEAT and JAGGED EDGE…the psychological terror of PSYCHO!” So claims the videotape box of 1987’s POSSESSION: UNTIL DEATH DO YOU PART (yeah, it ain’t on DVD yet, so climb up in the attic and borrow Mom’s VHS player). Well, not quite. Would you believe “The sensuality of SCREWBALLS and the psychological terror of PUPPET MASTER II?” I didn’t think so. Just being honest here.

FILMS LIKE THIS EITHER HAVE GREAT SPECIAL EFFECTS OR LOTS OF TITTIES. GUESS WHICH THIS ONE HAS?

Remember that psycho killer in Lucio Fulci’s way-past-his-prime gorefest NEW YORK RIPPER who actually quacked like a fucking duck when making a kill? Well, here in POSSESSION, we got a guy who likes to cackle like Crispin Glover on helium and make Marty Feldman faces. Lots of ‘em. In fact, that’s all this guy really does – dresses in camouflage, cackles like Robin Quivers on crack, and worships at the altar of Marty Feldman. Oh yeah, and there’s lots of nudity in this one, male and female, so you can kinda consider it SEX WITH A SMILE crossed with I DISMEMBER MAMA. BODY HEAT never came to mind.

THE KILLER. ONLY SLIGHTLY SCARIER THAN COREY FELDMAN.

Things immediately start off on the right foot – we’re not one full minute into the film when we see an unconscious girl being dragged across the lawn wearing only a skimpy nightgown, which doesn’t exactly cover her up if’n ya know what I mean (and I know you do). 9 minutes later, our killer's forcing a hot blonde to strip and wear his mother’s red dress, and the poor actress obliges. Yeah, he refers to his Mom a lot in this movie, so that might be where casual viewers and Leonard Maltin get their PSYCHO comparisons from. It doesn’t help that our killer sounds like a young Fred Schneider from the B-52s and looks like the bastard son of John Turturro and Joacquin Phoenix. It’s enough to make any young boy turn into a murderous, bloodthirsty cackling camouflaged Marty Feldman-loving psychopath. Or worse yet, John Malkovich.

DOES THIS DRESS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

Turns out our killer’s just looking for a girlfriend, and none of the girls are living up to Mother’s standards. So he kills ‘em. If that were me, I’d have to dispatch every girl in the tri-state area who wasn’t Cindy Crawford or Lisa Robertson from QVC. Because those are my mom’s standards. So I can kinda, you know, relate to this guy. I’m not saying I would go around smearing camouflage on my face and doing facial expressions from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but you get the idea. Anyway, he chases a few girls back to their Jeep Cherokee early on, and even though it’s wintertime, they conveniently keep their windows down so he can grab them as they try to pull away. When a cop just happens to be walking by (apparently they still ‘walked the beat’ back in 1987), the killer stabs him viciously, while his partner shoots four times blindly down the street. So much for public safety, huh?

THAT'S A NICE VIEW. ER, OUTSIDE THE WINDOW I MEAN.

Meanwhile, some Charlie Spradling wannabee is lying face down on the bed in a skimpy white teddy, just waiting for her boyfriend to arrive. When our killer walks in instead (don’t ask how, just accept) and starts rubbing her leg, she moans in ecstasy. Little does she know, it’s Marty Feldman as Norman Bates giving her the rubdown. But instead of, y’know, fucking her or something, he quickly stabs her in the back, then spears her pansy-ass boyfriend when he shows up 30 seconds later, finishing him off with the Freddy Kreuger-like punchline of “You’re late!” Yeah, but you’re gay, dude, for not banging that piece of ass on the bed. Even Marty Feldman would've helped himself to some of that.

TURNS OUT THE CARPET MATCHES THE MUTTONCHOPS.

Meanwhile, another group of liquored-up young things are partying down with some Chippendale dancers (yes, folks, the skin in POSSESSION isn’t solely for the guys). There’s also a really really shitty country song playing, with a chorus of “doing it right on the wrong side of town,” which somehow manages to make Rascal Flatts sound like literary scholars. The killer, meanwhile, is smart enough to stay away from Chippendale parties and country music, and continues to drown hot girls without fucking them and, in one particularly gruesome scene, pushes a guy’s face down into a spinning fan belt while he’s checking his car engine. Then he takes a baseball bat to his friend, all the while remembering to make a different Marty Feldman face in between each swing of the bat!

ONE FOR THE LADIES.

He chases another girl into the woods, where he suddenly stops in front of a tree, cackles for a few seconds and then starts licking his knife. Two minutes later he inexplicably jumps froggie-style into a girls’ shower and does something to a nude Jamie Lee Curtis lookalike that causes red paint to splash up on the shower wall and run slowly down the drain. After another soliluquoy to Mom and more priceless Marty Feldman faces, he steps over the hot, wet, completely nude co-ed on the shower floor and never even touches her. Now I don’t consider myself a freak by any stretch of the imagination, but if I ever found myself in a shower stall with a nude and unconscious Jamie Lee Curtis stunt double, you’d seriously have to turn off the cameras for an hour or two. Seriously. Nobody films that shit.

NICE, EVEN WITH THE BAD EIGHTIES HAIR.

And, by the way, what message does all of this send to us? I mean, isn’t it a slasher film rule that only the girls who fuck get killed? All this one did was sleep late and take a nice long shower. Is that reason enough to slash her throat? Oh right. I’m looking for sense in a film with a camouflaged cackling knife-licking Fred Schneider doppelganger with a Jones for THE LAST REMAKE OF BEAU GESTE. Fuck me already.

ONE FOR THE DOGGIES. WHAT?

So what we gots here is a lot of babes getting all nekkid but nobody to take advantage of ‘em, plot holes big enough to drive Hummers through, some inventive kills but no real gore to speak of (and almost all the killings take place offscreen due to budgetary concerns), and one seriously fucked up momma’s boy doing the killing. I say buy it and have fun with it, but not while sober, and rewatch it for the babes. And if you’re a Marty Feldman fan, this is a whole hell of a lot better than YELLOWBEARD.

I GIVE IT TWO OUT OF FOUR KARI WUHRERS.

FAST FORWARDING TO THE GOOD PARTS –

00 MINUTES – Right off the bat, we get a nip slip while dragging a dead girl across the lawn. Hotcha!

9 MINUTES – Forces a blonde to put on his mom’s red dress. Issues, man, issues.

OH TO BE REINCARNATED AS LIPSTICK...

28 MINUTES – Teen sex interrupted by what has to be the single WORST impression of a little teenage sister ever committed to film.

30 MINUTES – A Chippendale dancer in a skimpy thong gyrates for the ladies out there. Bummer for me.

I CUT YOU WITH MY KNIFE OF IMPOTENCY!

36 MINUTES – Fully nude shower scene from a smoking hot babe who’s got a body that’s almost as good as Charlie Spradling’s! And you don’t have to sit through PUPPET MASTER II just to see it!

A TWO STRIPE ASS IF THERE EVER WAS ONE.

44 MINUTES – Another hottie in the bathtub this time. But what’s with the CARE BEARS bubble bath? No, seriously. What’s WITH that?

NOPE, NO FREDDIE KRUEGER HAND HERE.

1:06 – Jamie Lee Curtis stand-in shows the whole goods in the shower, including a rather nice breast mole, but something tells me she ain’t gonna last long. Hey, I was right!

MUST BE THIS TALL TO GET KNIVED IN THE SHOWER.