Before box office success rendered everything that came before it moot, Dave checks out the ostracised step-brother to a modern-day horror behemoth.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before:

After a family move into a remote farmhouse, unexplained supernatural occurrences start to manifest themselves which ultimately leads to them seeking the help of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The Conjuring (2012)?

Nah, too obvious.

How about THE POSSESSION OF MICHAEL D. ?

Indeed, back when James Wan was still in college in Canberra, fifty-five year old Nancy Theriault was visiting the Canadian set of the first dramatization of the astonishing events that changed her life forever. Her husband, Maurice, known affectionately as Frenchie, had a grim childhood. The oldest of fifteen children, Maurice’s early years were punctuated by vicious beatings from his father so he took the earliest opportunity he could to flee the family home and start a new life elsewhere. In 1979 he met Nancy – and right from the get-go she knew it was going to be far from a smooth ride.

“Frenchie would get nervous or upset and bleed from his eyes,” she recalled to the Calgary Herald, before going on to remember occasions when she’d be scratching her husband’s back, only to lift his shirt and discover that the words ‘la porte’ (the door) had been etched into his skin [1]. In search of some help, their first port of call was the church who advised them to get married, hinting that living in sin may well be the cause of these strange incidents. Ironically, that only heightened their problems – so, inevitably, The Warrens came to investigate.

Based loosely on the book Satan’s Harvest by Boston Herald journalists Mark Charles Merenda and Michael Lasalandra, The Possession of Michael D. manages to strike an impressive balance between primetime melodrama and genuinely unnerving horror. Stephen Lang takes the role of Maurice – albeit rechristened to the eponymous Michael – and the Don’t Breathe (2016) actor absolutely nails it, oozing both menace and profound vulnerability. Sheila McCarthy’s portrayal of Nancy – or Jenny as she’s now called – is similarly heart-wrenching.

“I wish it had a better director,” William C. Martell said to me a few years back while discussing his movie Hard Evidence (1995), which Possession‘s director, Michael Kennedy, filmed the same year. “He shot it blandly and much of the suspense was never realised,” the scripter added. Happily, the same criticism can’t be levelled at Kennedy here. Most of the widely documented episodes from Maurice’s possession are recreated, and Kennedy does an admirable job of building a chilling sense of dread. It’s all about the tension, and equipped with the German cinematographer Manfred Guthe [2], the film’s wintry backdrop could not look any more unforgiving.

Airing on Fox in early May 1995, some of the press reaction to The Possession of Michael D. was savage. In his column for the Detroit Free Press, Mike Duffy described Fox as the “schlock and shock” network in the wake of The X Files’ success and groaned at the prospect of the channel pumping out “silly supernatural hooey” like this [3]. If you know, though, you know – and for any horror fan or enthusiast with a modicum of respect for the genre, this gripping tale of bedevilment should register as a very welcome discovery.

As a slightly spoiler-y postscript, it’s worth noting that, in contrast to the happily-ever-after ending of The Possession of Michael D. and, indeed, The Conjuring, the reality was in fact quite tragic. Towards the end of the ’80s, Maurice and Nancy Theriault grew apart, so much so that Nancy filed for a restraining order against her increasingly unpredictable husband. On 4th November 1991, however, Maurice entered the property where his wife was living and fired a shotgun in her direction, severing her left arm. He then sat down, raised the barrel to his face, put it inside his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Also known as ‘Legacy of Evil’.

Canada ● 1995 ● Horror, TVM ● 90mins

Stephen Lang, Sheila McCarthy, Michael Riley, Phylicia Rashad, Roger Rees ● Dir. Michael Kennedy ● Wri. Ronald Parker

[1] Demon Seed: The Possession of Michael D. Really Happened to a Shy Woman Named Nancy by Cia Curtis, Calgary Herald, 28^th April 1995.
[2] Guthe was rewarded for his work with a nomination at the Gemini Awards later that year.
[3] Fox’s Michael D. Movie Ought to be Repossessed by Mike Duffy, Detroit Free Press, 2nd May 1995.