Customer Reviews

Possession of Joel Delaney [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a fan of horror, I figured I would give this movie a viewing. As you guessed it, the movie concerns possession, but also goes into the 70s culture and seems to pass judgment on the rich. How's that for a horror film?

Shirley MacLaine plays a New York socialite who raises her two children and looks after her brother. Both come from a rich background. Her brother, Joel Delaney, tries to attack his landlord and is taken away raving like a madman. MacLaine, not understanding, proceeds to the psychiatric hospital and starts throwing her ex-husband's name around. After pulling some strings, the brother is released. The rest of the movie brings the gruesome murders for which her brother is now a suspect. He also begins speaking dreadful things in Spanish, but no one remembers him learning fluent Spanish.

The movie is set in the 70s, and the movie tries to show the collision between the Puerto Rican culture and the rich socialite culture. The possession happens when a strong-minded personality takes control of the weak-minded. The movie seems to say that the rich, who did not make the money themselves, are not strong-minded because everything has been given to them. The other issue is that Western science cannot understand something like this. We need the help of a culture older than ours.

Shirley MacLaine is infuriating and frustrating. My first reaction was that I couldn't watch this movie because her character grated on my nerves. After reflecting, I realized that that is exactly what she was trying to do with her role. I have to tip my hat to her performance.

Although not a horror classic like Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist, this is an interesting movie. I would recommend it for horror fans.

Predating "The Exorcist", "Joel Delaney" is the story of wealthy, grating Manhattan socialite Norah Benson (Shirley MacLaine), whose relationship with her brither Joel Delaney (Perry King) is a mite too close. When not busy treating her maid like the furniture and attending the sort of party where someone exclaims that her butler was simply appalled she had taken the bus, Norah start to notice that Joel is acting strangely. Soon after, heads start to roll.

MacLaine is brilliant in this, forcing the audience to care for what is in essence a very unlikeable heroine: Norah is an inveterate snob, an egomaniac (she seems to think that everyone from her ex-husband to her ex-maid should drop everything to come to her aid immediately) and has a relationship with her brother that borders on incestuous. Shirley still draws you in, showing the basic goodness and humanity in Norah. A very young Perry King is also very good here, flitting from sweetness to madness in a blink.

Almost more of a paen to mid-seventies urban paranoia than a straight thriller, "PoJD" makes good use of New York of the era. Never before or since has the city looked more threatening, from the tony Upper East Side to the East Village and Spanish Harlem, this New York fairly drips with menace. This is the Anti- "Manhattan"

Shirley MacLaine plays Nora, an aloof, privileged, divorced mother of two living in Manhattan. She's kept herself emotionally and socially distant from people and things she considers beneath her status. But when her beloved younger brother Joel (Perry King) begins having a severe and frightening personality change after moving into an apartment previously inhabited by a now deceased young serial killer, she's forced to confront realities she's hardly prepared to deal with. Then murders similar to the serial killer's occur. Racial undertones (the killer was Puerto Rican) and the occult blend somewhat uneasily in the film, but this is balanced by the truly creepy atmosphere, the acting and some disturbing sequences that made my skin crawl. The final sequence at the beach house is shocking. This is a horror film that is not for all tastes. For instance, there's a hint or two that Nora's feelings for Joel may go beyond just brother & sister. Also Nora's character is not your usual horror film heroine. She isn't very sympathetic. She's spoiled, indifferent and used to getting her way. So it's no surprise to find she's way in over her head right off the bat. MacLaine and King are good and make the often questionable material engrossing to watch. All in all, an interesting adult horror film from 1972 with potent social and supernatural themes. Definitely worth a look.

Pre-Exorcist horror film with rich NYC divorcee MacLaine as the bewildered sister of hippie brother (Perry King) possessed by spirit of Latino decapitation serial killer. More bizarre than suspenseful (beheadings, child abuse, quasi-incest) but worth a look for completists as MacLaine's strangest film.

I had read this book when it was originally published many years ago and quite enjoyed it. Just recently rented the DVD and was not too happy with it, even though it does stick pretty closely to the original storyline.

As I recall, the main character was more sympathetic and likeable than as played by Shirley MacLaine. The book also did a much better job of explaining how Joel became possessed. But the main problem with this movie is the last third or so. The abuse of the children was stomach-turning and much more extreme and dragged-out than I remembered in the book. I almost felt as if I were watching child pornography. Or perhaps reading about this part did not make as big an impact as seeing it acted out. As far as the ending, that is totally, totally different.

Read the book, instead!

Before THE EXORCIST there was Joel Delaney. Steeped in early 70s psychedelia, this meandering tale features an unexpected Shirley MacLaine as a snooty New Yorker whose hippie brother Perry King (in his film debut) starts exhibiting bizarre violent behavior.
The movie examines clashing cultures prevalent then and features a controversial climax featuring Shirley's 13 year old son.
Both MacLaine and King are eerily effective and while nowhere as terrifying as THE EXORCIST there are some disturbing moments.

The Possession of Joel Delaney (Waris Hussein, 1972)

I find it somewhat odd that of Ramona Stewart's extensive library, only two novels have ever been adapted into film. Her 1946 novel Desert Town was made into the Burt Lancaster vehicle Desert Fury the year afterwards, and 1970's The Possession of Joel Delaney was hustled into theaters in 1972. Banned in Finland and rated X in Britain (both for one fraction-of-a-second shot, but it points out the difference between 1972 and now, when filmmakers will think nothing of shaving twenty minutes from a movie in order to get an R rating), the movie gained instant notoriety, but when it comes right down to it, this is pretty much a standard possession flick that probably would have faded into obscurity quickly were it not for that fraction of a second. Who said Hussein didn't know what he was up to?

The title character (The Day After Tomorrow's Perry King in his first film role) comes from serious money, but after a trip abroad has decided to live the bohemian lifestyle, getting himself an apartment in the East Village and hanging out with folks his uptight sister Norah (Shirley MacLaine) would certainly consider undesirables. She's right in at least one case, a chap named Tonio Perez, who's definitely involved with the darker side of the spirit world. (I'm pretty sure the title tells you all you need to know from here.) When Joel starts changing, and a friend of his ends up dead and decapitated like three women who died the year before in Central Park (when Joel was overseas), Norah starts to get with the idea that perhaps Joel is, in fact, possessed, and has to figure out what to do about it.

I still can't get over the fact that that's Shirley MacLaine. Seriously? Tremendous job by make-up, costuming, etc. And kudos to Hussein for not cutting that fraction of a second that caused such controversy (and so many critical brickbats) at the time of its release. Stephen King famously said in 1994 that were this movie released today, it would be slapped with an NC-17, and he's probably right. In fact, I'm kind of surprised no one got arrested. But when it comes right down to it, the scene in question is cemented by its context, and could be easily passed off as an editorial slip. There's no denying the power of the context (as the scene comes within the final fifteen minutes, I can't say much about it without major spoilers), and in fact that final fifteen minutes is the best part of the film, which is otherwise rather dull. The Possession of Joel Delaney may have been the first major Hollywood film to have possession as its central theme, but The Exorcist, which appeared a few months later, was the first film to really do it right. The acting is decent, naturally, given the caliber of the cast, but when it comes right down to it, there's not much about Joel Delaney that's all that scary. Nice twist at the end, and while it's about as graceful as a mallet to the back of the skull, for Hollywood it's subtly-done. Worth seeing at this late date as more a curiosity than anything else, and a must-see for anyone interested in the history of Hollywood horror films, but casual fright-flick fiends aren't missing much if they pass it over for something meatier. **

Shirley MacLaine in one of her scariest (and compelling) roles. She's a Manhattan socialite and single mom living with her two kids. Her brother (played by Perry King) moves into an apartment once rented by a Puerto Rican teen murderer, and suddenly he begins acting as if possessed by the dead murderer. Things become unbearable for MacLaine as she tries to protect her kids (and herself) while trying to figure out what's going on with King. It's made even scarier because MacLaine has lived a sheltered, pampered life - up to then. The ending takes place in a deserted beach house, and it's one not to be forgotten soon after seeing it. Lots of people object to the gross-out final scenes (myself included), but the build-up to them is done grippingly and with a great deal of suspense. A fine thriller, and it's surprising to see it's not on DVD yet.

Great movie, a classic horror film. it is about a man Joel Delaney who becomes possessed by the spirit of a brutal serial killer. His
sister watches as he goes from being mild mannered, kind, and fun loving and becomes something dark, sinister, and sadistically cruel
and brutal. The killer who's spirit now possesses Joel in life would cut a womens head off and hang it from it's hair. This film is
mild compared to the exorcist but has it's level of scaryness in a classic way

Having seen this film when it first came out, I remembered being thoroughly upset by it, and being impressed by Shirley Maclaine's and debutant Perry King's acting. What I hadn't remembered were any of the details. Seeing it again thirty-nine years later, my memory of strong acting proves accurate, but this film takes an extremely long time to build, finally focusing only about three fourths of the way through with an intense Santoria exorcism ritual and culminating in a final scene of the most lacerating emotional and physical violence. (Certainly the most disturbing scene of its type in American film up to that time.)The film contains many sequences that were to become cliches of the genre over many years, but in many of them it can claim to be the first exemplar.THE EXORCIST, THE FAN(The Lauren Bacall, James Garner one) and even JURASSIC PARK (Has there ever been a scene in another film where children are kept in danger for such a long time ?) come most immediately to mind.
This film is a cautious recommend. It is way too slow, and the Santoria scene and the final scene may prove too intense for many viewers.
Violence, nudity , profanity and sexual situations.