The Possession is an aptly named horror film based on a true story in which an antique box containing a malevolent force which attempts to harness the body of the box's owner. Directed by Ole Bornedal, the film is said to contain numerous cliché paranormal movie aspects used in order to scare the audience; but due to its overuse tends to cause more laughter than screaming.
The opening scenes of The Possession sets the tone for what is to come in the rest of the film; we see an old lady killed/horrifically injured as she is possessed by the dibbuk ("a dislocated spirit that inhabits and ultimately devours its human host").
The film opens with a panning shot of some old black and white/sepia toned photographs, covering an entire wall, this would suggest that the house owner is quite old - confirmed when the pan stops to display an old woman staring aimlessly ahead of her - and that they are family orientated, thus placing the audience in a location that they can relate to heightening the tension from the offset. Additionally the use of low key lighting and lack of colour (producing an overall unsaturated effect) aids the audience in thinking that something about the house isn't quite right. However, the biggest factor in setting the scene in the beginning of The Possession is the audio. Off-screen diegetic and non-diegetic sounds accompany each other to create an eerie soundtrack to the opening scene; the minor key keyboard tune plays alongside an indistinguishable mumbling or chanting of which we discover to be coming the box. The fact that an inanimate object is the source of this speech-like noise, adds to the queer nature of the opening shot.
Preceded by a close up zooming shot of the woman's face (plain and tired-looking) the audience gets a glimpse at the true power of this box. The box is shown in the centre of the frame, to its right are some dying flowers, which give a sense of foreboding to the audience, and to its left is a small ornate jug/vase and a card saying "Happy Birthday: To mum, love James." consolidating out previous inkling that this woman was very family orientated. In terms of the box itself, it looks rather plain, alike most other items in the house, and has Hebrew script across its front, making it likely to be very old, possibly tracing back to ancient civilisations. The cuts between the woman and the box almost make the box seem as though it is a person not an object, allowing it to hold a higher power within the setting. This is furthered when the lady is shown to flinch her hand away upon attempting to touch the box, it is as though the box (more specifically: the spirit within it) has the ability to inflict pain on those surrounding it. This ability then explains the dead flowers and also may be the cause of clumps of the woman's hair falling out in the following sequence.
The extreme close up shot of the woman's hand, as she walks towards the box with a hammer, reveals more about the woman's relationships. We can see by the lack of wedding ring that the woman is either unmarried (having had her son out of wedlock) or widowed, leaving her vulnerable as she is alone in this house. Furthermore the fact that she is holding a hammer in her fist indicates that she is angry at and determined to destroy this box and whatever spirit is within it. The accompaniment of the crackling, old fashioned, melancholic, diegetic audio sets an intimidating and uncomfortable atmosphere within the setting, implying that the woman's attack on the spirit will not end well.
The audience's suspicions are proved correct when the woman becomes possessed. It begins during a close up shot of her face, it slowly droops on the right side and her left arm begins to shake as though she no longer has the strength to hold up the hammer. These shaking movements get more violent and we then see a match on action shot of her being propelled on to her back as her body succumbs to the evil force. By using a match on action shot, the audience can truly see the impact of the spirit on all parts of her body. Within these shots a key aspect of mise en scene can be seen in the background of the shot, towards the top of the frame: a crucifix. The fact that the woman is presented to be religious fits a convention of the horror (and particularly possession) genre, as good vs evil is an essential topic to be discussed - so as to allow for a ridding of the spirit at the end of the film if desired or to show that even the most conservative of people (i.e. an old, make-up-less, Christian woman) can be possessed and thus scaring the entirety of the audience.
The next few cut shots are used to contrast the normality outside of the house, in the suburban town where the woman's son has just arrived, with the strange and scary happenings inside the woman's home, where a wind is gushing with the energy supplied by the evil force and the woman herself, now possessed, is writhing unnaturally on the floor and dangerously harming herself. The diegetic screams, not of a volume or pitch suitable for this woman, add the scare factor to the scene; parallel to the stereotypical possession visual the screams act almost as a jump-scare, a stark contrast to the minimal audio
earlier in the sequence.
To summarise; the dark/neutral tones in costume and setting accompanied by low lighting, set the scene to be negative and eerie. The fact that an old, vulnerable, woman (who is alone) is chosen as the victim fits the generic stereotype of the horror genre. Audio is a fundamental part of possession/paranormal films as the shock factor of visual image is minimal.
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