A Voodoo Possession   Starring: Danny Trejo Distributor: Signature Entertainment RRP: £12.99 Certificate: 15 Release Date: 07 July 2014

Having lost both his job and his apartment, Aiden is persuaded by his ex-girlfriend – a TV journalist – and her crew to accompany her to Haiti to discover what has become of his younger brother. Cody, a doctor specialising in psychiatry, moved to the country after a devastating earthquake struck. He turned an abandoned building into a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to help the affected people. But when he suddenly went missing, many detractors felt he had absconded with the money he had been given for research and facilities. Very soon they find film footage with Cody and a possessed local called The Happy Man, who is prone to bouts of extreme violence. The building harbours the gateway to the demon dimension, and the only way to get Cody back is to follow him there. But dramatic re-enactments of his uncovered traumatic childhood plague Aiden, until he is forced to save himself and his brother from The Tormentor...

Not that I received a retail copy of this release, but a small picture shows that the cover is extremely misleading. There is a picture of the most well-known name in the film, Danny Trejo. He has a snake around him and spiders on his shirt. There is no scene depicting this event in the movie. Furthermore, the marketing blurb synopsis describes Trejo as a man searching for his brother. They obviously have the characters mixed up, as he isn’t one of the brothers but a man working at the psychiatric hospital who helps Cody, and teaches him a little about the Voodoo religion, so that he can greater understand his patients. In fact, his character, Kross, is the first one to tell the others that the building is cursed. However, although it’s always good to see Danny Trejo, the best character by far is Duane, one of the film crew, who at first seems rather selfish and shallow but is much more defined – not to mention being an occasional light relief.

There doesn’t appear to be much meat on the bone here, and the below-standard acting certainly doesn’t help matters. The entering of the spirit world to find Cody is simply a means to an end plot device to allow Aiden to relive all the bad memories which had been blocked-out by a hypnotism organised by his mother, who later committed suicide. I’ve seen horror films before which involve the protagonist arriving almost by accident at an event that turns out to revolve around them. There’s a little of that situation here, and Aiden relives his memories with a bland, almost careless expression.

I did like the final scene which is played-out in the demon world version of the house’s basement and, in particular The Tormentor, which is a representation of Cody’s guild – now attempting transference to Aiden, now that he knows the truth.

So, this film has some redeeming features, but is otherwise pretty standard fair. At least there are no close encounters with zombies of the lumbering kind.

5

Ty Power