A pinnacle of sorts in the world of bizarro Euro-horror that manages to stand alone as a singular work of such courage, confidence and baffling derangement that once seen it is not easily forgotten. Sam Neill stars as a paranoid husband who sets out to follow his wife (Isabelle Adjani), who is behaving increasingly strangely and whom he is convinced is having an affair. At the same time he meets a schoolteacher who looks identical to his wife, but is characteristically for more amiable. What he eventually discovers falls somewhere between soap opera and Lovecraftian horror – and nothing that has been made since has ever come close to topping it. Perhaps a little bit long in its set-up, and Neill’s performance is annoyingly hysterical at times, but the pay-off is so out-there and incredible that it’s difficult to criticize the movie for how it gets there.
Possession
