Top 7 Demonic Possessions in Horror

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Top 7 Demonic Possessions in HorrorJohn Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is finally making its illustrious debut on Blu-ray, and it’s been a long time coming. As the film is filled with all kinds of evil, we’ve assembled a list that’s pretty scary in its own right to celebrate the release: The Top 7 Demonic Possessions in Horror.

We’ve got some honorable mentions including Constantine and The Devil Inside as well as Burnt Offerings and The Rite. And although there was definitely some kind of possession going on in Fallen, The Amityville Horror and The Shining, they seem to have been more ghostly than demonic. Or are we nitpicking here?

Either way, I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’m absolutely crippled with fear from exorcism films so it was with great trepidation that I accepted the assignment to create the Top Seven Demonic Possessions in Horror.

Top 7 Demonic Possessions in Horror
The Evil Dead
Growing up, I swore that The Evil Dead was the scariest film ever made. And what made it so scary? For starters it was the possessed Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) barricaded in the basement with just enough slack in the chain for her to be able to peek out and terrorize the rest of the folks in the cabin. Oh, and how did she get to be this horribly disfigured demonic being? She was dragged into the woods by living greenery and raped by a tree. As far as becoming possessed goes, that’s probably the toughest route to take. Of course The Evil Dead franchise would go on to feature many more possessions; even the great Ash himself had some company in his body. But it was Cheryl, the first and most terrifying, that kept me up at night.

“American Horror Story: Asylum”
“American Horror Story: Asylum” had so much going on you could really shoehorn it onto any top anything list. With slashers and aliens and Jessica Lange singing “The Name Game” in a psych ward, “American Horror Story: Asylum” was truly a cornucopia of the bizarre. However, one of the most impressive characters in the show’s sophomore season was Sister Mary Eunice, played by Lily Rabe. The meek sister had a demon take up residence in her body while she was attending a successful exorcism in one of the early episodes of the season. (Hey, the devil’s gotta go somewhere, right?) The show smartly used this possession angle to make for some compelling and fun television.


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