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J.D.’s Revenge
Possession was never quite so dull
1976
Director: Arthur Marks
Starring: Glynn Turman, Lou Gossett, Jr., David McKnight
It may help you ignore how this 20-minute story is stretched to 90 minutes.
THE SETUP:
Cab driver is possessed by the spirit of a dead gangster and goes about taking revenge for his killing.
DISCUSSION:
This movie started out intriguing, and then gradually I lost all interest. It just goes on way, way too long, with several scenes pretty much repeated until it’s time to wrap it up. By the end it was fast-forwarding all the way, and I’ll confess to you right now that I was reading the paper as it drew to its conclusion. I assume it all worked out the way you know it will from before you even rent it.
There is, as usual, a lot of nice 70s touches, like the way our two main couples casually go out to a strip club. Then there’s a nightclub hypnosis routine, where our hero, Ike, becomes possessed by the spirit of a 40’s gangster we saw in a flashback at the beginning. The next hour is composed of the spirit taking him over periodically, wherein he beats and rapes his girlfriend, utters a lot of “I don’t know what’s happening to me’s,” and gets possessed again. Then he gets revenge, the end.
During the first half, when I was still somewhat interested, I was surprised that the movie takes such a serious tone, which I liked. It reminded me quite a few times of The Dead Zone, oddly enough. I also liked that the hero is just an average cab driver.
There are a few amusingly 70s tropes; such as when Ike tells his doctor that he’s experiencing blackouts, and his doctor advises him to “smoke some weed.” Then, after he’s beaten his wife, his friend advises him that this news is “fantastic” and that “they like it.” Parents, please don’t let your impressionable young boys watch this film.
Anyway, so we have escalating possessions, one pretty much like the other, until by the time the story is to be wrapped up my mind was elsewhere. You could probably get a lot more out of life by devoting the time you might have spent watching this film to masturbation or toenail filing.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
No. There are LOTS of better Blaxploitation movies out there, and even some of the worse ones are more entertaining than this.
