Resident gift to humanity Guillermo del Toro has many a reason to bear such a title, having gifted us the likes of Cabinet of Curiosities, The Shape of Water, and perhaps the greatest adaptation of Pinocchio the world has ever seen.
Outside of his more personal contributions to bettering our lives, the horror maestro has taken the liberty of calling attention to a mouthwatering, fast-approaching addition to Shudder in the form of Possession, Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 European cult classic that famously bends genres as beautifully and grotesquely as its themes.
Pegged by del Toro as “one of the great films,” Possession, without giving too much away, grapples with the deteriorating relationship between international spy Mark and his wife Anna, who initiates the possibility of divorce as she begins to exhibit strange, horrifying behaviors.
Fellow horror icon Mike Flanagan was all too happy to back del Toro’s sentiment as well, giving all the more reason for us to take this haunting plunge.
Others, meanwhile, are cautioning first-timers that no amount of preparation will make the film an easy watch. Of course, it just makes the prospect all the more tantalizing for those already interested anyway.
American audiences only ever received a heavily edited cut when the film first came overseas, so it’s likely that its true essence \was lost back then. Thanks to its imminent appearance on Shudder, though, horror aficionados old and new will have the opportunity to experience it in the way Żuławski intended.
So read up on your European history, get your therapist on the line, and prepare to experience the psyche-curdling Possession when it releases to Shudder tomorrow on Jan. 5.