Tagline
“She wears other people's bodies. They don't always come off.”
The Review
Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor is a cerebral body-horror thriller worthy of his father's legacy. Andrea Riseborough plays a corporate assassin who hijacks other people's bodies using brain-implant technology to carry out hits. When a mission goes wrong and her host (Christopher Abbott) begins fighting back, reality and identity dissolve into a hallucinatory nightmare. The practical effects are stomach-churning, and the film's cold, clinical aesthetic creates a world that feels one degree removed from our own. Cronenberg proves that body horror is genetic.
Fun Fact
Brandon Cronenberg deliberately avoided watching his father David's films during development to find his own voice. The practical effects — melting faces, identity dissolution — were achieved without CGI. Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott trained together to mirror each other's physicality for scenes where their identities blur.
Score Breakdown
Total Score
19/30
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