We’ve made it to a different spooky season. The approaching October will carry loads of new horror motion pictures, however that’s by no means sufficient. We’ll additionally disturb all of the previous bones of horror motion pictures passed by. As we speak we’re digging up The Possessed, which belongs to the class of “Seventies Exorcist ripoffs.” It was made for tv and initially aired on NBC in 1977, just a few weeks earlier than one among its supporting solid blew as much as change into one of many greatest film stars of all time. That’s proper, The Possessed options Harrison Ford as sleazy highschool chemistry instructor Mr. Winjam, earlier than the world received to know him as Han Solo.
The Seventies belonged to William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist, an train in terrifying folks that exceeded something that got here earlier than it, and from which there was no turning again. That is very true should you contemplate Brian De Palma’s Carrie — tailored from Stephen King’s novel a couple of little one who, in her personal method, additionally turns into possessed — to be a department off the Exorcist tree. The cinema was filled with imitations, with the baldly named Exorcismo, a specific favourite. Much more had been created for tv, most notably Devil’s Faculty for Women and The Spell. What the TV exorcist knockoffs misplaced from the grindhouse in gore and lurid sexuality, they generally made up for in professionalism. The Possessed is a very competent and grounded movie, possibly just a little stodgy. It’s anchored by its up-and-coming solid, which incorporates not only one future Oscar nominee in Ford, however three.
The movie is about at a Catholic ladies’s school that’s about to carry its ultimate commencement ceremony earlier than it turns into coed. This transformation weighs closely on the college’s headmistress Ms. Gelson (Joan Hackett), who appears like she failed. She’s cheered up by her sister, Ellen (Claudette Nevins), a widow who teaches on the college. Many of the college students are intimidated by Ms. Gelson, together with the secretive “Weezie” (Ann Dusenberry), who’s Ellen’s daughter. In the meantime, as commencement attracts close to, the scholars and school are menaced by a mysterious collection of more and more dangerous fires, every with no obvious trigger.
Ellen, who was the one witness to one of many fires, turns into satisfied that they’ve a supernatural trigger. When the investigating police officer (Eugene Roche) dismisses her, she asks her psychiatrist for assist, and he recommends “a person who may be what you’re on the lookout for” named Kevin Leahy (James Farentino). The Possessed by no means outright makes use of the ex-word, however Leahy is a onetime Catholic minister. We see him throughout a prologue, performing the sacrament, and consuming closely on the aspect. After he’s in a seemingly deadly automotive accident, he has a imaginative and prescient of the afterlife, the place he’s informed that he has misplaced his religion, and should return to earth to hunt salvation: “You need to search out evil, and you have to battle that evil by what ever means attainable.” Leahy is at the very least exorcist-adjacent.
Leahy seems on campus at some point and tells Ellen that he is aware of she’s been on the lookout for him. (She assumes her psychiatrist has discovered him and despatched him to her, as stated he would, however later discovers that Leahy simply “knew” to point out up.) Leahy says there could also be an evil occupying the college. If there’s, it’s going to have occupied one particular person. So the remainder of the film turns into a thriller, making an attempt to find who that particular person is.
It’s round this time that Harrison Ford’s character takes middle stage. We meet Mr. Winjam in chemistry class, the place you’ll be able to actually see advance traces of the classroom model of Dr. Indiana Jones, though his massive thematic classroom scene can also be evocative of Walter White’s “chemistry is the research of change” lecture. Later, we uncover that he was as soon as in a relationship with the headmistress Ms. Gelson. Moreover, it’s revealed that he has been having an affair with Weezy, who’s Ms. Gelson’s niece and in addition his pupil. Lastly, Winjam bursts into flames, the movie’s first and solely casualty. And that’s the final we see of Harrison Ford.
The position is way from Ford’s first display screen look. He’d already labored with Francis Ford Coppola on The Dialog and George Lucas on American Graffiti, and had dozens of tv appearances. However the swaggering-yet-vulnerable Harrison Ford persona had not but been developed. He would play a considerably equally villainous character many years later in What Lies Beneath, however in that movie he’s enjoying in opposition to the expectations of the viewers. Right here, there aren’t any expectations, and Ford has room to experiment. He takes lots of possibilities. His efficiency feels influences by a number of the extra emotionally uncooked actors of the ’70s, specifically evoking (although your millage might range) Dustin Hoffman and Robert Blake. It’s jarring, however enjoyable to observe.
Ford isn’t in most of The Possessed, however the entire thing is barely greater than an hour lengthy (it was 90 minutes with commercials), so you’ll be able to positively watch it for him. (It’s on Youtube.) There’s truly fairly an excellent solid surrounding Ford. Joan Hackett, as Ms. Gelson, is complicated and poignant. Hackett was married to the playwright Neal Simon, and some years later can be nominated for a Greatest Supporting Actress Oscar for Solely Once I Snicker, which was based mostly on one among his performs. Diana Scarwid, who can be Oscar-nominated for her work as Joan Crawford’s daughter in Mommie Dearest, provides a energetic efficiency as the category valedictorian.