Michael Allred

Now here is a forgotten film from the 1970's! "The Possession of Joel Delaney" stars Shirley MacLaine (sp?) who suspects that a member of her family is possibly insane but as it turns out, he's possessed by the spirit of a...BA DUM BUM!!!! serial killer!

Check out IMDB's page on the film;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067601/

and a brief review:

http://homepages.tesco.net/~intruder...s/possjoel.htm

I couldn't find any record of it over at www.boxofficemojo.com to see how well it did (or didn't) in theaters so it's impossible to say if it was a hit or bomb. Perhaps someone here knows?

In the recent issue of "Entertainment Weekly", Stephen King mentions the movie in his column (which was about the MPAA, ratings, etc) and he refered to a scene in "...Joel Delaney" that is rather shocking and would likely cause the film to get an NC-17 rating if it were made in these times.

www.amazon.com says the film is available on VHS from Paramount so I would assume then that they own the rights to it. I wonder if Martin Blythe would look into the possibility of releasing this little seen movie onto DVD in the near future? Here's amazon's product listing...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...417582-4612118

So has anyone else seen "The Possession of Joel Delaney"? If so, did you like it and would you buy the DVD?

Norm de Plume

A long time ago. No, I don't think I'd be interested in the DVD. The voodoo segments of the movie are uninteresting. The only suspense I can remember comes at the end, when MacClaine and her kids are visiting their seaside cottage. This is also the part to which Stephen King is probably referring vis a vis NC-17: Perry King, who plays Joel Delaney, holds the trio hostage and forces the preteen son to strip naked.

Michael Allred

Now who is Perry King? The name sounds familiar? The guy from the TV series "Riptide"?

Ah ok. I'm not always 100% sure on King-isms but now I understand what he meant by "starkers."

I don't recall the article word-for-word but King said something about the scene not having a sexual connotation.

Groucho

I just read that article myself. Surprised you weren't familiar with the term "starkers." Hey, it's a good word to use around the water cooler.

Norm de Plume

That's him. Too bad he never really made it big; he gave a marvellous performance in Class of 1984.