Sam Neill's Cult Classic '80s Horror Movie Is A Must-Watch For Every Fan

The world became a less enchanted place today with the death of actor Sam Neill. The New Zealander was a boundlessly talented actor who deftly segued between leads and character roles. Ever since 1993, he's been most closely identified with the role of paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in "Jurassic Park," but I first encountered him as Damien Thorne, the son of Satan in the third installment of "The Omen" series. Though the franchise was running on fumes at this point (it lacked the devilish grandeur of Richard Donner's films and the gore-soaked ghoulishness of Don Taylor's sequel), Neill is mesmerizingly evil as Damien. He's icy one moment, and then disturbingly relatable the next (particularly as he bonds with the young son of his reporter girlfriend). It would've been a star-making performance had the film been better, but it still put him on the map for mainstream moviegoers. I knew at the time I'd be enjoying his work for decades to come.

This is why it's so crushing to lose him at the age of 78. Despite being diagnosed with lymphoma in 2022, he was still working diligently and brilliantly. Even if the movies fell a little short, Neill was reliably great. It's painful to know there are only two more Neill performances coming (in "Godzilla x Kong: Supernova" and Donald Petrie's rom-com "The Last Resort"), but he left behind a wealth of phenomenal work that may be new to many of you. I can't recommend his early-career classics like "Sleeping Dogs" and "My Brilliant Career" highly enough, but if you want to see Neill in the most bizarre creature feature ever made, you've got to strap in for Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 masterpiece "Possession." This movie will scramble your brain in the best way.

By the time I caught up with Andrzej Żuławski's "Possession" on The Movie Channel in 1984, it had been slashed down from 124 minutes to 81 minutes by its U.S. distributor. It was sold as a straight-up horror movie, and I'd prefer not to explain why, because that would spoil one humdinger of a reveal.

I will say that Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani give two sensational performances as, respectively, a West German spy and his emotionally distraught wife. They're locked in an intense dispute over the custody of their son, but this is not your standard portrait of domestic hostility. Even Alan Parker's "Shoot the Moon," a bruisingly brutal depiction of marital discord, has nothing on "Possession." This is a film where husband and wife self-mutilate with an electric carving knife. And that's just the tip of Żuławski's demented iceberg.

Neill is the protagonist of "Possession," but he's basically playing set-up man to Adjani's incandescent performance. She disappears in this movie. There's a moment that rivals Gena Rowlands' strobing breakdown in "A Woman Under the Influence." She won Best Actress at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival for this performance, but would she have gotten there without Neill?

According to Neill, during an interview on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review:

"I call it the most extreme film I've ever made, in every possible respect, and he asked of us things I wouldn't and couldn't go to now. And I think I only just escaped that film with my sanity barely intact."

This extends to the viewer. "Possession" takes you places that will leave you scarred. The U.S. theatrical cut couldn't do that, but Żuławski's unexpurgated vision accomplishes this with interest. If you love Sam Neill, this is an essential portrayal.