The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972)
A demonic possession film that came out a year before The Exorcist, The Possession of Joel Delaney is a well made movie starring the always excellent Shirley Maclaine who slowly comes to realise her brother may have something sinister going on when he begins acting very strangely.
Shot on location in New York with good direction from Waris Hussain, the film looks at social and racial class as much as it does superstition and voodoo. Although a very well scripted and acted film it is very slow moving until the final twenty minutes and a beach house finale which is both extremely controversial, decidedly seedy and out of place from the rest of the film seemingly more like The Last House on the Left (1972) or the more apt i guess Last House on the Beach (1978) than what comes previous in this melodramatic supernatural thriller.
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