User Reviews

First viewing: September 1984 / Second viewing: October 2003

The opening installment in the `Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense' series had myself and my father intrigued one September Saturday all of nineteen years ago. This week I came back for a second helping and the power of `In Possession' has not diminished. A sense of dread and terror pervade throughout with the neat conclusion jaw-droppingly clever. Watch out for the interaction between Cazenove's character and the friendly policeman at the end. The ultimate nightmare. 8/10

This has always been one of my favorite episodes of Hammer House of M & S, and a it's a bit of classic! Two years after a paranormal experience in their Brighton hotel room, Frank and Sylvia Daly settle down to spend the final night in their now empty London apartment - before jetting off the next day to a new life in Botswana, where Frank has been transferred for his job.

But their night is far from peaceful - the paranormal apparitions return, this time a bit closer to home, and soon they find themselves in the middle of a horror story - bearing witness to a wicked crime that appears to have involved former tenants of their apartment. Was it all just a dream - or did they really see what thought?

The tension builds nicely in this claustrophobic story, as we learn more and more as to the fate of the poor old woman Frank and Sylvia first saw in Brighton. Christopher Cazenove and Carol Lynley make a convincing terrified couple, caught up in a real-life nightmare - with good support from the friendly neighbors upstairs in the shape of David Healy and Judy Loe (who was of course the widow of the late Richard Beckinsale).

This is an unusual and suspenseful story, which provides as excellent and surprising twist at the end which is well worth the wait. Highly recommended!

Sylvia and Frank Daly are set to move to Botswana after he is moved and promoted by his firm, however they're haunted by a real life nightmare, a husband murdering his wife.

A fine start to this series, imaginative, clever and rather grim at times, with the couple seemingly trapped in n endless nightmare. I like that it was a shared experience, and that you never quite knew if their nightmare was real or not.

That final twist, that was great, if you've ever seen Afterlife with Lesley Sharp, there's an episode in that with virtually the same plot.

They truly did hire some grey writers for this series, and this debut episode sees a great script from Michael J. Bird, best known for The Aphrodite Inheritance and who pays the Ferryman.

My only gripes, Lynley screaming so much, and at times it felt a little repetitive, but otherwise it's an atmospheric thriller that will have you caught up in it.

Top notch performances from both Carol Lynley and Christopher Cazenove, both are very convincing.

Lynley did a line in horror thrillers, I have become a big fan of hers in recent times, think Cat and The Canary and Thriller.

Excellent start.

8/10.

I saw this movie almost by accident late one night and have been hooked since. It is, in short, a haunted house story in reverse (and that's why it is called "In Possession" and not "Possessed"). The setting is a paradox, ie the LAST NIGHT of a couple due to move out of THEIR OWN HOUSE in the very urban setting of central London. But the master touch is that the living characters unwittingly seem to "possess" the spirits..or so it seems. Not to be missed.

Brilliant ghost story that is an admirable predecessor to"The Sixth Sense" and movies of that type...Well worth you and your's time. Especially worthwhile to note is the delicate writing and story construction so crucial to a good ghost story and the reason why so few food ones have been created. (See the recent ham-handed remake of "The Haunting" as a classic example!)

This TV movie has lights and shadows but it definitely deserves to be watched. Keep in mind that it is a minor UK 1984 production.

The idea could have been developed in half the time. The duration is 1h10'. It should have been edited in 40'

I don't mean it is slow, but there are repetitions which in my opinion make the script less effective.

Nevertheless it is quirky enough to be amusing: enduring to the end will be rewarded.

BTW. It's quite easy to find it on YT .There is even a Italian dubbed version called "L'ora del mistero 01x06 Salto nel tempo")

IN POSSESSION is easily the best episode of the HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE series as I shall demonstrate.

The TV series in question was a combination of hits and misses. Some episodes had wonderful concepts but became bogged down in very boring 1980s drama styles, with upper middle-class characters exchanging boring dialogue with each other. Most 1980s drama in Britain was executed along these lines. On the other hand, some episodes of this TV series were genuine exercises in suspense, tension and genuine horror. IN POSSESSION is one such episode. Others include A DISTANT SCREAM and THE CORVINI INHERITANCE.

The plot is as follows - a man and his wife are preparing to move to abroad. On the night before they leave, they witness strange events at their apartment.

The abstract concept is admittedly far from unique. However, the execution most certainly is unique. I guarantee to everyone that the abstract concept has never been executed like this before or since. It has to be seen in order to be believed!

As another reviewer on this site has pointed out, the title IN POSSESSION is a deliberate heading for the setting of a paradox. Instead of a couple moving into a haunted house. It is during the last night at their own house that supernatural events take place.

Execution of this masterpiece is more akin to a movie than an episode of a TV series and that is only its first strength.

The second strength is the seriousness of the whole exercise. There is no room for humour - not even the tongue-in-cheek kind - in something like this. The horrific nightmare presented on the screen is genuinely scary. And this is coming from someone who was highly disappointed by supposedly "scary masterpieces" such as THE HAUNTING, THE INNOCENTS, THE ENTITY, THE WOMAN IN BLACK, THE ORPHANAGE and SESSION 9 just to name a few. I can assure every reader of my review that I do not scare easily. There is a multitude of horror movies that I love for entertainment value but very few of them have ever scared me. But IN POSSESSION has scared me every time I have watched it.

The starting point of the plot is deliberately mundane. However, it is interspersed with supernatural occurrences from the earliest scenes. It is the intrusion of these supernatural elements into what should be a by-the-numbers drama that takes both the viewers and the characters by complete surprise.

The acting is stellar across the board.

Carol Lynley gives the performance of her career as a loving wife who becomes terrified by the supernatural occurrences she bears witness to.

Christopher Cazenove is perfectly cast as a rational husband who thinks his wife is just having nightmares or just nervous about leaving home. His gradual build-up of fear is very realistic given the initial characterisation.

David Healy has fun playing the friend of Cazenove's character. He is given a few corny lines. But he executes them in a manner that makes his character very likable.

Judy Loe is given little to do playing the wife of Healy's character. However, her character's stronger will than that of Lynley is a key part of the set-up scenes.

However the absolute standout on the cast list is Bernard Kay. He gives the performance of his career as the highly sinister Mr. Prentice - a man who plans to murder his wife so that he can get his hands on her life insurance. Mr. Prentice is given one superb line after another that he speaks with supreme malevolence that genuinely sends chills down spines. Every word, every glance, every hand gesture and every movement of Mr. Prentice is delivered with understated literal creepiness. He is one of the best villains committed to celluloid.

These excellent actors are all backed up by a director who clearly knows the concept of horror inside out. This is rather ironic as Val Guest is actually more famous for directing comedies! I'm not making this up. Check his filmography and then see IN POSSESSION. You'll find yourself wondering why he never directed more horror works.

Val Guest does an excellent job exploiting everything available to him - lighting, camera angles, camera motion, sound effects, editing, you name it. Even simple everyday events such as dripping water from taps are made eerie in this masterpiece.

High-pitched jarring musical chords complement some truly disturbing visual images.

Lighting is used perfectly to blur the lines between the perceived "reality" and the perceived "fantasy". The "dark is scary" cliché is cast aside as the scenes with lighting are actually the scary ones! This is the only movie I can think of where you literally want the lights to go out to feel safe!

The style and execution is always fully in tone with the concept of paranoia and nightmarish imagery that is the heart of the story.

All of this culminates in a truly intelligent ending that you simply will not see coming. The final image is truly unforgettable and will stay with every viewer long after the show is over.

The incredible irony of the whole exercise is that Hammer movies made during the British horror heyday of the 1960s and 1970s were always executed in a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek style. They were almost always exciting but very rarely scary. In fact, these movies are more likely to induce laughter than anything else if seen today. In contrast, IN POSSESSION is a latter effort that strips away the humour, removes the clichés and ratchets up the tension to unbearable levels.

Overall, IN POSSESSION is a true masterpiece of horror. It is easily the best episode of this particular TV series. I highly recommend it for every horror fan. What are you waiting for? Start looking for the DVD!

This could be Hammer's only successful ghost story. Part of their swan song series of 13 television films, this is a superbly written and original drama which really builds the menace and keeps the viewer guessing. Christopher Cazenove is a reliable lead and the charming Judy Loe is always a pleasure to watch, only the annoying Carol Linley marring the proceedings slightly. The claustrophobic location, believeable reactions and excellent twist ending all unite to make this a perfect little chiller, although the slow motion sequence is a bit drawn out. A gem!

In Possession is a story concerning a couple who is getting ready to move out of the country. The night before they are to leave, odd occurrences start happening inside and outside their apartment.

I personally thought this whole thing was way overacted, both by Carol Lynley and Christopher Cazenove - a lot of falling apart every time they see something unusual. The exception is Bernard Kay who plays the bad guy. I'm familiar with some of Carol Lynley's other work (THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE comes to mind) - she's generally not a bad actress as I recall.

The story didn't make much sense in either plot lines or scenes. For an example, sometimes the bad guy can see the main characters and sometimes he cant. The main male lead goes to see a parapsychologist but this is never mentioned again. I'm still trying to figure out why they had a hotel room at the beginning. Sometimes one of the leads sees the apparitions and the other doesn't. All of the hollering and screaming they do in the middle of the night doesn't wake any of their neighbors (remember, they live in an APARTMENT).

I was in agreement with the reviewer that wrote about the silly soundtrack. Yep, you've got that one note when something scary happens and it ends abruptly. Outside of that, there wasn't much of a soundtrack to be had except for the end.

So, for me, not much sense to be had, bad acting, plot holes, etc. I can't recommend it unless you are a Carol Lynley fan.

Episode that I can say without a shadow of a doubt among the best of the series, anxious and brilliant, brings different themes and many twists that make it wonderful. Episode that perfectly embodies the spirit of this series that is, mystery and murders with a huge pinch of paranormal. All the scenes from the initial to the final one are designed to create an atmosphere of anxiety and disbelief in which the viewer is captured. From start to finish, everything leads the viewer to think about a certain development and then bam twist that amazes the viewer even more than he was amazed before. Great episode built in a masterly way.

In Possession (1984)

** (out of 4)

A few chills are pretty much wasted in this episode from the Fox Mystery Theater. Frank and Sylvia Daly (Carol Lynley, Christopher Cazenove) are on a business meeting when they walk into their hotel room and notice an elderly woman and her daughter. It turns out these were spirits and two years later the couple are in a new home when they start to experience mysterious things. IN POSSESSION actually gets off to a pretty strong start as the pre-title sequence manages to be quite creepy. Director Val Guest manages to build up some nice suspense during the routine but effective opening but sadly the rest of the film just slowly falls apart. There are many problems with the movie but the majority of them can be blamed on the screenplay, which just runs out of ideas as it goes along. After a while you just get bored with the two people constantly "seeing" new items. These items include spirits, dead bodies, weird lights and other visual objects but they are never scary and after a while they just become boring. Obviously in a film like this there's going to be a big mystery that gets revealed but when it finally happens I really can't say that I was shocked or didn't see it coming. The film benefits from the two leads who offer up fine performances and the supporting cast isn't too bad either. Guest does what he can do inject some life into the story but after a while it's just one cliché after another.

I'm almost halfway through the first (and only) season of "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense" and have to say I already considered giving up on the series a couple of times. Not that the individual episodes/short films are terrible, but so far none of them are really stupendous (like it was the case with "Hammer House of Horror"), and all of them do share the same shortcomings and nuisances.

For instance, all five installments I watched thus far suffer from a too lengthy running time for the very thin plot outlines they bring to the table. Again here, "In Possession" would probably have worked very effectively as a 30' episode - "Twilight Zone" style - but as a 70-minutes TV-movie it rapidly becomes tedious and repetitive. Also, all stories are similar in terms of build-up and narrative structure. Partially, this is logical, since all of them are mystery & suspense tales, but at least some variety would have been welcome.

"In Possession" revolves around a married couple who, shortly before moving to Botswana to start a new life, becomes entangled into a family tragedy that unfolds in their own apartment and before their own eyes, but they cannot interfere. They witness how an elderly lady is mistreated and even killed by her husband, but they are merely spectators. It drives them to the verge of madness, obviously. In fact, it's one of those typical tales where the supernatural loves to mess around with people's head and make them look like fools. Meaning, whenever the protagonists call in witnesses or search for help, everything turns back to normal.

The story has a fantastic ending. And I do mean a really and downright fantastic ending. It's the kind of ending that, if you would claim to have seen it coming, you'd be lying for sure. The climax perhaps isn't entirely waterproof (example: what about the birdcage?) but it's the best possible ending this overall dull and disappointing tale could receive. It cannot compensate for the general disappointment, but together with the steady direction of veteran Val Guest and the hysterical performance of the always-adorable Carol Lynley, it at least made "In Possession" worthwhile. So, I guess I won't be giving up on the series just yet.