Remember when Luca Guadagnino dared to attempt a remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria a few years back? The end result had some bravado moments—Tilda Swinton in multiple roles crossed with intense body horror is never a bad thing—but it never really justified its existence. There’s no reason to offer a do-over of Suspiria when a person could very easily watch Suspiria, a stone-cold masterpiece, instead.
We revisit this uncomfortable moment in cinematic history because those same feelings are rising with the Possession remake, which we’ve already wailed about on this very website. Today’s news that a release date has been set (June 11, 2027, according to Variety) makes us want to run into an empty subway station and have a psychotic breakdown. And we’re even fans of the talent involved, much like we are of Guadagnino and Swinton. Parker Finn, who made Smile and then leveled up with Smile 2, is directing, and Margaret Qualley (whose performance in The Substance feels especially relevant) stars alongside Callum Turner, star of Apple TV’s upcoming Neuromancer series. But Possession, maybe even more than Suspiria, is a movie so attached to its setting and context that it just feels impossible to recreate. The 1981 film was directed and co-written by Andrzej Zulawski, who took inspiration from his own painful divorce to explore the fracturing relationship of Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna (Isabelle Adjani). He’s a clandestine agent who becomes obsessed with her infidelity, which involves partners both human and… not.
