Review: Brandon Cronenberg's 'Possessor' Explores Identity, Psychological Horror

The apple does not fall far from the tree in the Cronenberg family, that's for sure. The spawn of the man that brought us such body horror mind-f**ks as "The Fly," "Scanners," and "Dead Ringers" proves he has similar tastes as his famous father, and just as much talent.

With his sophomore feature, "Possessor," Brandon Cronenberg shows his own command of the screen, and also his taste for psychological terror and blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is an agent for a secret organization that uses brain implant technology to send their employees into the bodies of other people, whom they use to carry out assassinations for powerful customers. Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is her boss, who runs the operation and thinks of Tasya as her best agent. But Tasya is getting a bit distracted, as her job takes her away from her estranged husband and young son with whom who she is trying to reconnect. This doesn't sit well for Girder, who wants Tasya fully committed.

After she's almost unable to finish an assignment, Tasya takes a bit of time off to spend time with her husband and sort out her head. But she is drawn back to her work, and is soon assigned another high-profile case involving the owner and CEO of a data mining company named John Parse (Sean Bean). His daughter Ava (Tuppence Middleton) is not a fan of her father, and ends up dating lowly data miner Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott). But the stepson of Parse is after the family fortune, and hires the company Tasya works for to invade the mind and body of Colin to carry out a series of murders that will put the stepson in control of the company.

But all does not go smoothly with the tech, and soon enough Tasya and Colin's minds are fighting for control of Colin's body. Or are they?

Cronenberg's fascinating, if sometimes confusing, thriller is a wild, messed up trip that gets under your skin as much as Tasya gets under others'. The idea of using an unsuspecting person's body to carry out horrific acts that generally end in their suicide is so rife with ethics issues Cronenberg could practically make a TV series out of the basic premise.

But what Cronenberg is so deft at is invading our own psyches as we battle to find the right person to root for and to shudder at the thought of the violations that are occurring. At the same time, the idea that we could one day develop technology that might put us in control of others, yet damage our own psyche in the process, is disturbing.

David Cronenberg is masterful at crafting unsettling images, and his son is no different. While there is extreme violence here, it's the psychological horror of the mind-melding that is magnificently unnerving.

The script doesn't totally explore aspects of the premise that one would expect it to, and the ultimate end game is a bit more simplistic, but not less horrifying. It really would make a good series, where he could investigate all sides and uses of the technology, as well as those that use – and become pawns of – it.

"Possessor" is definitely a mind-shifting original vision, and Cronenberg's cast is game, from Riseborough's clearly disturbed Tasya, who is barely hanging on to her sanity, to a thoroughly engrossing performance by Abbott, who could get a slew of nominations for his work as the "possessed" Colin who wrestles to control his mind and body.

Cronenberg's film is in a class by itself, and right now I think people are game. "Possessor" is a return to a time when filmmakers were being alarmingly inventive and audiences were more than willing to be possessed by them.