Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Benas Mcloughlin
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
eboni_depry
I really liked this movie. I may be biased because I adore film noir, but I was impressed with this movie's plot. It was more of a mystery than a horror film, but it was certainly a thriller. They were really creative in showing possible life changes that occur after a possession. Also POSSIBLE SPOILER! there is an excellent twist that I was totally not expecting! But that's all i am going to tell you. I totally recommend Ava's Possessions because it had a twist AND a freaking cool cliffhanger. Just go watch it. Like open a new tab and stream this movie, watch it, then tell everyone you know. I don't care what the critics say. Just go watch and tell me what it made you feel.
Kim Heniadis
When I read the premise of this movie, I knew I had to see it. I thought the idea was so unique, and I personally don't know of any other movies that show what happens to a person after the spirit they are possessed by is exorcised. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments, because I would love to see them.The movie starts out with the typical scene of a girl tied to the bed, and the priest doing his thing. (My mind just went to a bad place when I typed that
maybe it's all the cold medicine I'm on.) Then a month has passed, and we see the aftermath of Ava's destroyed apartment, and her family physically pulls back from her when she approaches them. Ava's mom has a patch over her eye, and you just know it was Ava's fault.Ava's then talks to her lawyer, and he tells her that she has three options; go to prison for harming people and property damage, go to a crazy home, or go to SPA and get help so her demon doesn't come back. She chooses SPA, and we get to see how other people react to their lives after the spirit leaves their body.I will say I wish there were more scenes in the SPA group. I think a lot more character development could have been done here, and seeing how the different people were coping was very interesting, and in some cases, humorous. Although this is a horror movie, to my it was more of a mystery. Ava's family wants her to leave it all alone, and just get better, but she wants to find out why a demon possessed her. The mystery itself was done okay. For me the clues were laid out very quickly, and were not hard at all to figure out. The reason I'm giving it four stars instead of five, is all the unanswered questions at the end. But I would say to definitely give this one a watch.Major Spoilers Ahead.There are various ways that you can get possessed. They put forward the idea that it might be genetic, and another way is for someone other than yourself, to do a ritual and burn an object from your childhood that meant a lot to you.Ava has a creepy bear go missing before she's possessed, and she keeps having waking dreams of the burnt bear talking to her, trying to give her information. If someone did burn the bear, who was it? I'm thinking her sister, because towards the end, Ava sees a mark on her sister's neck. But if her sister did do it, why? They seemed to get along well, and there was never any motive given at to why she would want her sister possessed/out of the picture.Then Ava stumbles across a file towards the end of the movie, that pertains to her mom, hinting towards the genetic aspect. If this was the case, was Ava's sister possessed at one time too. But if so I would think the family would have realized it.
Mr_Ectoplasma
"Ava's Possessions" follows the titular character, a young woman who wakes up one day tied to her bed after an exorcism. Having wrought havoc on the public during her demonic spree, she is ordered by the court to a "spiritual possessions anonymous" group to reorient herself. But in making amends with the people she wronged, she uncovers a plot deeper than mere possession.While it may sound like a substandard and silly representation of the possession horror genre, "Ava's Possessions" is really a morbidly funny, mysterious, and amusing post-millennial riff on a subgenre that has been drowned in terrible found-footage films and badly-scripted Z-grade movies.This film presents the aftermath of demonic possession in a contemporary world, albeit a topsy-turvy one in which such things as group therapy for ex-possessees are a real thing, and friends are insouciant to the fact that you've been taken over by a demonic entity. It's these kinds of idiosyncrasies that make the film slightly humorous, but it never really at any point becomes a comedy. The film is nicely shot and makes use of an overt neon color palette, which is rather beautiful. The performances overall are very good as well, with Louisa Krause as the semi-cynical Ava. Carol Kane also has a cameo as a downtown New York witch/botánica proprietor.Overall, "Ava's Possessions" is an amusing, slightly sardonic, and energetic horror movie. It is not profound by any means, but it is a self-aware rewriting of the conventional possession film that came to be defined in the wake of "The Exorcist." It's a playful twisting of conventions, is nicely shot, and considerably well-acted. Those expecting a B or Z-grade possession flick should be nicely surprised.
filmbizarro
Jordan Galland's "Ava's Possessions" stood out in the Fantasia International Film Festival schedule to me for being a movie about the aftermath of a possession. When I originally heard about a little movie called "Tonight, We Stay Indoors" by no-budget filmmaker Joseph Larsen, I was intrigued in similar ways. If you don't know, "Tonight, We Stay Indoors" is essentially about what happens after a slasher movie. Yet "Ava's Possessions" seemed to take a completely different route with its aftermath story. A more traditional one than Joseph Larsen's very slow art-house approach. "Ava's Possessions" mixes crime mysteries and comedy with its horror themes, making it something that doesn't require you to be completely on edge.Ava wakes up as her normal self, with a priest telling her that she has been possessed by a demon. This has been going on for a month, and her family have desperately tried to get through this month of torment. Finally Ava is back! Because crimes were committed during her possession, Ava has to take responsibility for them. She can either go to jail and serve the time, or she can go to meetings with the Spirit Possession Anonymous group. The group helps her on her journey to recovery - a long and hard journey as the demon might return. When things are starting to look up, Ava is told to get in contact with all the people she wronged during her possession, and she slowly finds evidence of something horrible having taken place."Ava's Possessions" feels like if you treat possession like going on a bender, and the movie takes place the day after when trying to remember where you were, what you did and who you slept with. Yes, it's very on the nose about this, especially considering that the demon that Ava was possessed by was a rich, snotty and careless demon. The movie is rather basic and you can quickly tell what the filmmaker was going for. This wasn't really issue to me until a slightly underwhelming end to the movie. For a movie with such a great premise, it felt like the movie became less and less original the longer it went on.Don't let the above statement scare you from watching the movie though, it is still a very fun movie. It's still relatively fresh and unique, with plenty of fun horror movie clichés having been skewed to fit the mold. "Ava's Possessions" is not a horror movie, but I'd absolutely regard it as a movie made for horror movie fans. It's a perfect movie to watch when you want a horror comedy but have realized that the majority of them are the same.I appreciated that "Ava's Possessions" never blossomed into full horror, and was always much more a mystery/crime comedy than anything else. The clichés were done in just the perfect way where they didn't feel like parody, yet somehow intentional. The possession scenes themselves were pretty much what you expect but they are treated well within the "lore" of the movie. Overall a pleasant watch that's worth keeping in mind when you want an easier movie.