Why So Blu?

Film 

The Possession of Michael King is the latest film to tackle exorcism and found footage angle all in one. After Michael (Shane Johnson) loses his wife to an accident he goes on a personal journey to discredit the existence of The Devil, having already come to conclusion that there is no God due to the loss of his, and to be fair, there wasn’t much belief in God when she was alive either, sets on a journey into madness. Michael consults with priests, mediums, and all around freak shows and gets himself involved in rituals and all sorts of whacky stuff, while capturing it on tape, so he can show the world that there is no such thing as The Devil.

Back at home, as a single father, he has to take care of his young daughter who is settling into life without her mother and Michael’s sister also moves in too help around the house. After Michael finishes playing around with the forces of evil strange things begin happening at the King residence. Michael begins to hear voices and begins to here high and low pitched sounds, that once he brings in his audio expert friend, finds out that the sounds he’s been hearing are actually not able to be heard by humans due to the frequency.

Ants begin infesting his home but it turns out to be just one ant that reappears after he continuously kills it. All of this is being captured on tape and make no mistake the title of the film is accurate. Michael King does end up getting possessed by demons and it will take every trick in the book in order for him to prevail. I saw the trailer for The Possession of Michael King a few weeks ago and thought it looked great. Once I finished watching the Blu-ray – the film runs 77-minutes without credits, I thought it was decent enough horror fare.

I enjoyed the horror and possession element and even the found footage element. What I didn’t care for was the motive, or lack thereof. Even the ending of the film is a bit confusing, because it still explains nothing. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy films that leave questions but sometimes a bit of an explanation is warranted just to fill in the blanks a bit. I can put the pieces together if need but when you give me nothing to work with it does tend to be a major buzz kill.

The Possession of Michael King is definitely worth checking out of you want a slightly different take on the sub-genre. It’s not a game changer by any means but should be quite satisfying if you’re into the genre and need a kick in the pants.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Clarity/Detail: The Possession of Michael King is a found footage film; therefore, the film is shot with various pro-sumer grade cameras that may differ in quality from one to the next. This is the point of the film and it does give production a bit of authenticity

Depth: Depth levels are great, because the way the cameras are set up throughout the house and when Michael carries one thrust the viewer into his world. The perspective 2 and 3-point perspective shots are great and give production values a higher boost.

Black Levels: Black crushes a bit here and there but it’s done intentionally – at least it looks that way.

Color Reproduction: The color palette is a limited palette but there are colorful flourishes throughout the film that include some of the rooms in Michael’s house and some of the wardrobe that is littered about in this rooms.

Flesh Tones: Flesh tones start out natural before turning into a sickly pastiche of despair. As Michael descends into madness so does his complexion.

Noise/Artifacts: The image is peppered with house and debris but 99% of it is added in postproduction – it artificial noise as opposed to inherent noise.

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Dynamics: I don’t know who or what was behind the mixing board but the sound levels on The Possession of Michael King seemed to have been altered and not in a good way. This is a very abrasive soundtrack. It sounds as if every scene that contains dialogue has been lowered to a hush. I found myself raising the volume up, because I couldn’t hear what the actors were saying and then before you know it a freakin’ jump-scare hit and I had to turn the volume way down so as not to go deaf. I don’t really know why this is but I am not a fan. Yes, the film gets a 3-star, because the rest of sound levels are brilliant, minus the dialogue, which we’ll cover below.

Low Frequency Extension: The LFE is extremely aggressive and you will feel every thump that goes bump in the night and then some.

Surround Sound Presentation: You will hear demonic chatter and static through the rear channels as if it were you that was the one listening to the evil spirits. The rear channels are very aggressive and very loud.

Dialogue Reproduction: Very low dialogue levels snap the rating down a bit, which is a shame, because if the dialogue levels were at the same level as everything else this could have easily been a reference audio track.

Extras  

N/A

Summary 

The Possession of Michael King is an admirable entry into the very popular possession sub-genre of horror films. Michael King does raise more questions than answers but then again this is another found footage film, so I am not that surprised. The video is average but the audio is really puzzling as it looks to have been manipulated in post and not in a good way. The lack of a single extra drag the overall Blu-ray score way down. Yes, The Possession of Michael King is worth viewing but the Blu-ray could have been beefed up a bit more.

Order The Possession of Michael King on Blu-ray!