ThePossessionofJoelDelaney

The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972)

Joel Delaney seems like a nice guy from a nice family. Other than his eccentric habit of living in bad neighborhoods when he has the means not to everything about him seems normal. Except of course for the fact that he is possessed by the spirit of a Puerto Rican serial killer who likes to cut the head off of women that is. Only his sister Norah realizes this, while everyone else just thinks he is crazy. After unsuccessfully trying the services of a voodoo witch doctor to remove the man’s spirit Norah grabs her kids and leaves town to hide from the now homicidal Joel. I think heading to the family’s beach house might not have been such a great idea though.

If you can’t tell yet I wasn’t really thrilled at all by this movie. By no means is it a bad film, but I did find it a bit slow and at times unintentionally comical. The movie takes far too long to introduce the characters and establish the background of Joel and what might have happened to him. The movie is an hour and forty-five minutes long and could have used some serious cuts to speed things along. Also the first time I heard the dubbed in “evil” Puerto Rican voice over Perry King’s (who plays Joel) dialogue I almost fell off of my couch I was laughing so hard. There are some disturbing scenes with the children at the end of the movie, but they just feel sort of exploitive and cheap. I don’t mind that in itself, but it just doesn’t fit with this sort of big budget Hollywood movie. Paramount gets a lot of heat for burying some great titles, but with this movie I can sort of see why they did it. Additionally the ending is also predictable and absurd, though Shirley MacLaine (as Norah) gives it her best to pull it off. Honestly one of the reasons this movie isn’t worse than it should be is the fact that the two leads, MacLaine and King, are wonderful actors and thru their performances manage to drag the movie into worth watching once territory.

This is a well-made professional movie. While not spectacular the camera work is solid and captures a gritty side to NYC that I did get a kick out of. The costumes are glamorous for the early 70s and the music is cheesy pre disco fun. There aren’t any on screen kills, but there are a couple severed heads that are okay, but nothing special (pun not intended). If they had cut some of the inane dialogue and tossed in a few more kills this movie might have been pretty cool and an early 70s classic.

This is at best a rental, unless you can pick it up on the cheap. I watched it once and can’t see myself investing the time to watch it again. Still there are some decent performances and anyone looking for a trip down memory lane into the 70s might get a kick out of it. This movie is available from Legend Films. Check out their website at http://www.legendfilms.net/ for more information.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer