The Possession of Joel Delaney is from an era of filmmaking that cannot be done today. There is a certain casualness in the acting and filming that is strictly a product of 1970's films. Yes, there are moments that seem slightly unpolished which is exactly what makes some of these films from that era so interesting.This film is a perfect example of a type of film that Hollywood can no longer produce.Norah Benson is a society lady in New York amongst the upper middle class and attends parties with pretentious people. However, one of these socialites is a friend who tries to help her brother who may be possessed by a serial killer.The acting is excellent by everyone. Everyone looks good without being too perfect. But the atmosphere in the scenes, the believable characters are what make the film. You really feel that these people are their characters. The tension in the end keeps you on the edge of your seat. Don't miss this.

When watching this movie, I kept saying to myself-"Okay,this is it. It can't get any more bizarre than this". I was very,very wrong. It got weirder and weirder as it went along,each scene creeping me out and captivating me more and more. This movie is hands down horrifying. One scene that particularly sticks to my mind is the scene where our hero, Norah, is walking into her beach house with her children dragging behind her. She walks into the kitchen,and on top of the refrigerator is a severed head. Well, you may be saying, that's standard slasher movie junk! Wrong! The director made that scene special because the audience can see the head sitting there long before Norah does. What made the scene even more original was the fact that in the first couple of seconds we see the head, it is just sitting there comfortably, no horror music or anything attached to it. At first I thought, hmm, nice kitchen...then my eyes drifted to the head and I thought ,woah, is that a head?!? The horror movie music kicked in a second later, confirming my fear that yes, it was a head. And ritual scene where the Puerto Rican man became possessed was intense and nerve wracking. A very, very good, overlooked horror thriller.

Fear has always accompanied mankind ever since he took his first steps from the cave. Indeed, man has always been afraid of anything which he cannot understand. From the beginning of time, man has always created his Gods according to his levels of stupidity. Throughout time, science has sought to explain that every phenomenon has a rational explanation. But if Science is slow to understand and explain the strange and unusual, the ignorant will jump to the first conclusion explained by the charlatans among them. A case in point. This movie which preceded The Exorcist by a year, is called " The Possesson of Joel Delaney. " The story is that of a wealthy socialite, named Norah Benson (Shirley MacLain) who discovers her brother Joel (Perry King) is becoming mentally unhinged and is more irrational each day. Those around him believe he is possessed by a violent demon. She tries to help by calling on modern doctors and specialists. Because they are unable to cure him immediately, she desperately turns to magic, medicine men and voodoo healers. Despite their beads, rattles, chants and magical incantations, they too remain powerless to help. Finally, she is advised to leave the city and flee before her brother becomes a danger to her children, Peter and Carrie (David Elliott and Lisa Kohane) Unfortunate the dark drama of this film multiplies as Joel pursues her sister and the children to a beach house where in his demented state he plans to murder them. The incredible movie is superb in it's selection of MacClain, Perry, Elliott, Kohane and Michael Horden. The controversial scenes which were used by critics to condemned this film are mostly in the small minds of myopic censors who have never beheld anything stranger than a cat and dog fight. For the majority of audiences, the movie becomes a Classic and a milestone in the long journey away from censorship. An excellent film for the open-minded not afraid to take giant steps away from the cave door. ****

This movie pushes an obvious agenda, and fails. It is supposed to be some kind of commentary on the conflict between traditional supernatural beliefs of immigrants and the cold superficial rationalism of urban secular America, and the gap between the upper and lower classes. But I didn't feel while watching it that the director had any real concern for these worthy subjects - he just wanted to scare the audience with cheap shocks and distasteful taboos, and those don't create a better horror movie than the usual run-of-the-mill slasher/exploitation. The reason why the horror movies of Cronenberg, Polanski, and Craven work so well is that their very-real sociological subtext is buried just under the surface - the director is one step ahead of the audience, and the audience feels disturbed and helpless but can't fathom why. Their movies don't feel the need to rub the audience's nose in it in every scene like this one does. In fact, it seems as if this movie is working from some master-list of taboo subjects to cover - so it can proudly put check marks next to incest, mental illness, drug abuse, classism, divorce, suicide, Latino stereotypes, child nudity, possibly homosexuality, and dog food consumption. Very much a product of its time - the early '70s, when better movies pushed the social boundaries to enhance rather than replace a strong storyline like this one does. The movie also just doesn't make sense. The sound is lousy, and the editing is simply bizarre - sometimes cross-cutting head shots of Shirley MacLaine with completely different facial expressions. There are unimportant scenes and subplots that don't belong in the movie, and many others that belong in it but inextricably aren't there (such as the entire backstory about Perry King's character - he seems to walk into the movie already half-crazy). Is there supposed to be an unexpressed incestuous relationship between Shirley MacLaine's character and her brother? Who cares? Are all the Puerto Ricans in NYC part of a creepy religious cult? Looks like it. With some of the most lazy direction I've ever seen in a big budget film, I really wonder whether the director wasn't on drugs or something. The one worthy scene in the movie is a "traditional" Puerto Rican exorcism with drums and dancing which forms a very different counterpoint to the Max Von Sydow scenes in "The Exorcist."