Film

Ava's Possessions

Name: Ava's Possessions
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 2015
Cast: Louisa Krause, Whitney Able, Deborah Rush, Lou Taylor Pucci, William Sadler

Urban fantasy

After a month of demonic possession, Ava wakes with no memory and attends a support group for the possessed to piece together what happened. It's a funny, clever mystery-thriller that treats supernatural trauma like mundane bureaucracy, mining genuine laughs from absurdity while maintaining real stakes. For people who like horror with a sense of humour and don't need jump scares.

TMDb rating

2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like horror-comedy that treats possession like a bad hangover, with a wry lead and a support-group setup that plays the premise for dry laughs rather than jump scares.

Skip it if you need your scares to land hard, since this leans on chatty, low-key comedy and a slow-building puzzle more than on fright, and its mystery takes its time.

What it asks of you: Under ninety minutes, it moves briskly through a winding mystery plot, asking you to keep up with a wry, shifting tone rather than settle into dread.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Happy as Lazzaro2018

A mysteriously innocent man navigates a corrupt world with deadpan grace, uncovering dark truths through quiet observation. Like Ava's Possessions, it pairs magical-realism weirdness with sharp social commentary and an utterly disarming lead performance.

But Italian, slow-paced, and philosophically heavy. It moves at its own meditative rhythm, which can feel distant rather than engaging.

Ghostbusters II1989

The original supernatural-comedy-mystery blend: ghosts as a New York problem to solve, with deadpan experts, elaborate mechanics, and genuine stakes beneath the jokes. Pure joy with a logic all its own.

But Broad '80s comedy. The humour is very much of its moment, and the effects look frankly silly now.

Eerie, Indiana1991

A teenager discovers his town is the centre of weirdness and spends each episode solving small supernatural mysteries. Absurdist, clever, and weirdly moving—it knows when to drop the comedy and let something matter.

But Only 16 episodes were made and it feels occasionally uneven. Some weeks the jokes land harder than others.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ava's Possessions

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe2016

Both are mysteries about understanding an impossible event through incomplete information. Both use the confined space and the investigation itself as the real story, not the explanation.

Two coroners spend one night examining a mysterious corpse with inexplicable injuries. It's a locked-room mystery where the supernatural arrives slowly, then relentlessly—building the exact same creeping dread and mounting impossibility as Ava's Possessions, but in 89 minutes of pure escalation.

But Claustrophobic and repetitive by design. Most of it happens in one room, and if you need plot momentum or answers, the ambiguity will frustrate you.

What We Do in the Shadows2014

Vampires as flatmates managing bureaucracy and pettiness, filmed like a mockumentary. The same logic as Ava's Possessions: the supernatural filtered through mundane exhaustion, done with perfect comic control.

But If you need plot momentum it drags—it's episodic and plotless by design. Flatmate comedy isn't everyone's speed.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil2010

Horror-comedy that inverts every trope: two harmless guys mistaken for killers. It's funny, moves fast, and genuinely cares about its characters beneath the gags. Smart deconstruction of the genre.

But Relies on you knowing slasher movies well enough to enjoy the reversals. If you don't care about the conventions, the jokes won't land.

The Cabin in the Woods2012

A horror film that steps outside horror to explain and mock its own machinery. Like Ava's Possessions, it's fascinated by systems—how possession works, why, who benefits. Clever, funny, and genuinely frightening.

But The twist is well-known now, and some find it smug. Also bloodier than Ava's Possessions, if that matters to you.

Let the Right One In2008

A vampire film about childhood friendship and loneliness that treats the supernatural element with absolute seriousness and tenderness. It shares Ava's interest in how possession and otherness isolate people.

But Bleak, slow, and emotionally heavy. Not a fun watch. The Swedish original is better than the American remake.

The Final Girls2015

A grieving girl is pulled into a slasher film from the '80s and must navigate the rules to save her mother. Clever premise, earnest emotion, and genuine affection for the genre it's playing with.

But The execution doesn't quite match the concept. It's well-meaning but scattershot, and some setpieces land while others fall flat.

Possessed1947

Both use demonic possession as a metaphor for losing agency and selfhood. Both are ultimately about the aftermath and reclamation, not the possession itself.

A Woman Finds Obsession and Jealousy Destroy Her Life; A Psychological Noir Masterpiece. Deeply weird 1940s melodrama about possession as metaphor for losing control. It predates The Exorcist by decades and treats the supernatural as internal and devastating. Van Heflin and Joan Crawford are electric.

But Arrived in noir shorthand—you have to read subtext and mood rather than plot. The possessed angle arrives late and oblique; most of it looks like domestic drama.

Sympathy for the Devil1968

Both treat possession as a framework for examining how we lose and remake identity through external systems. Ava's Possessions says 'bureaucracy'; Godard says 'ideology and art.' Same engine, opposite fuel.

Godard's most accessible and strangest film: a car journey where the Rolling Stones record in a factory, the Rolling Stones are revolutionaries, and a blonde woman is possessed by Hitler and sex and violence. Chaotic, baffling, furious, and oddly funny—possession as political and creative metaphor, not horror trope.

But Structurally incomprehensible. Godard doesn't build narrative; he throws ideas at the screen. The racism and misogyny are historical and unpleasant. Not a coherent experience, but a provocation.