The Possession of Michael King

The Possession of Michael King, takes its characters as seriously as it takes its plot. It knows exactly what kind of film it is from the opening scene, and never loses that thread. With 444 viewer ratings on TMDB, this is not a title flying under the radar. Shane Johnson anchors it with a performance that rewards close attention. There is no real reason to keep putting it off.

There is a reason The Possession of Michael King keeps coming up in conversation. The Possession of Michael King trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. The film tells the story of documentary filmmaker Michael King (Shane Johnson), who doesn’t believe in God or the Devil. Following the sudden death of his wife, Michael decides to make his next film about the search for the existence of the supernatural, making himself the center of the experiment – allowing demonologists, necromancers, and various practitioners of the occult to try the deepest and darkest spells and rituals they can find on him – in the hopes that when they fail, he’ll once and for all have proof that religion, spiritualism, and the paranormal are nothing more than myth. But something does happen. The performances from Shane Johnson and Ella Anderson give it more weight than the premise alone would suggest. It was released in 2014. The performances in The Possession of Michael King do a lot of work in the silences between the dialogue. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

The Possession of Michael King is what you recommend to people who say they do not really watch much. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. It is a manageable watch, easy to fit into a single evening. Shane Johnson is the centre of it, and it is one of their strongest performances on record. The patience it asks of you early on is paid back with interest.

The Possession of Michael King was released in 2014, directed by David Jung. The full 83-minute film is available to watch now. Find exactly where it's streaming below, and TV Butler Pro makes it effortless to track your progress as you go. Just search the name, and Butler finds it instantly, tells you which service has it, and remembers exactly where you left off.