07 December 2024
The Possessed (1975)

90 min.
Directed by Amando de Ossorio.
With Julián Mateos, Marián Salgado, Fernando Sancho, Lone Fleming, Ángel del Pozo, Kali Hansa, Daniel Martín.
From the creator of the highly enjoyable Blind Dead quartet comes this weak Spanish variation on The Exorcist.

A known witch is arrested for abducting an infant. But before she can be interrogated she jumps through a window to her death.

Her evil spirit possesses the police commissioner's sweet young daughter Susan (Salgado) who then sets out on a path of insults, blasphemies and murder.

De Ossorio's direction here is assured, but too often uninspired; scenes from Friedkin's classic are mimicked, but they lack any additional touches of originality which would lend them their own spirit of terror.

Still, the makeup for gypsy witch Hansa and the possessed Susan is effectively creepy, and the, uh, 'dismemberment scene' in the park is oddly unsettling.

Also known as Demon Witch Child.

Italian: La endemoniada.

This would make a fun triple feature with Alberto De Martino's The Antichrist and Assonitis' Beyond the Door (both 1974).

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