Possession of Mara 2025 (Z Films) Review

Hassan Zee is back with another story set in his favorite city, San Francisco. Possession of Mara is a exorcism possession film, which is a tough challenge for any indie filmmaker as the genre is quite vast and filled with more duds than bangers. The film begins as Christopher encounters a strange women who appears to possessed by the vengeful spirit of Iblis (the name for the Devil or Satan in Islamic terms).  Unfortunately here, the horror elements here strike the viewer with all the power of a penne lisce noodle, cooked al dente.

Let’s start with the strange sound mix of this film. Vlad Len who plays the Devil character is given a strange vocal filter to his dialogue, which makes him a bit hard to understand. It appears his dialogue was also captured in post and added in, as the lip syncing is off at times. There are scenes with Christopher walking around San Francisco that are eerily quiet and devoid of city soundscape ambience, and sometimes you can hear the background noise boosted up in certain dialogue segments. The soundtrack does no flavors as it sounds generic and pulled from some old stock footage library meant for rom coms.

The hotel is one sweet place to see on screen.

One positive I can give the film is the main location of the hotel is a banger of a backdrop. Filmed at the Hotel Majestic in San Francisco, a hotel that was originally built in 1902, it provides a lot of space for Hassan Zee to use and helps fill the frame with it’s charm. It also rocks a killer creepy basement and hallway corridor.  There is also a pretty cool church and bar location that is used as well. Thanks to these backdrops, Possession of Mara at least avoids the indie trope of being filmed in someone’s bedroom the whole runtime.

That said, the plot of this movie is something else. At the start of the film when Christopher discovers Mara, she is about to jump into the ocean thanks to the Devil’s influence. Now this is meant to be a jump to end her life, but she is about two feet above a fairly swallow ocean. Maybe Doc Zee needed to put a dialogue line in here saying she can’t swim or something? But I was not sure what her plan was. Ironically, the Golden Gate Bridge is in the background, which is, you know, a bridge people famously jump from. Now granted, filming such a scene on the Golden Gate was most likely not possible for an indie production, but if that was the case are not other ideas to make this more dramatic. Place Mara on a tall building, or have her pull out a gun? Anyway, Christopher convinces her not to jump and invites her to stay at the hotel.

Here begins a most awkward relationship. Mara shows up to the hotel with just a purse mind you, but somehow is able to switch outfits throughout the film. (From where they come from is anyone’s guess). Christopher develops a love interest in her, but Mara is haunted by the Devil. There are moments where the film turns into a purple-o-vision where the devil appears, which only certain people can see him. The Devil comes off more comedic than scary, as he mostly just monologues and walks around. The Devil also haunts other guests in the hotel who are checking in for some reason. He ends up scaring these two kids and follows them to their rooms. We don’t know what happens after that as most scenes in this movie just abruptly fade to black. Also, the scene plays out twice with different families where only the kid can see the devil. But the Hotel receptionist does not feel it is weird that it’s happening twice where the kid is mentioning seeing someone that is not there. 

The Devil sure is not making things easy for Mara

These janky transitions and odd inconsistencies break the immersion and feel out of place. In one moment, Mara and Christopher will be fighting, then the film fades to black and in the following scene, they are on good terms. In one scene, the devil character is not wearing his black contacts and has normal eyes. Sometimes the color correction sticks to the purple when the devil is on screen and other times not. At the bar scene you can see where the actors are staging their bags when Mara walks to the bathroom. All this stuff adds into a strange mess.

Phew, I even haven’t gotten to the second act where Christopher discovers this Spiritualist Church. Which is a Church that doesn’t belong to any particular religion, but they just hold seances to talk with the dead. It actually seems like a boring place to be as you just wait until the preacher calls on you to commutation with your lost spirit.  This is the part where Christopher wants to bring Mara to the Church to help with her “Devil problem”. This eventually leads to them doing a exorcism to get rid of the devil.

During the exorcism, props must be given to Aubrey Bence who plays Mara. As she is doing all she can to sell her possession. The exorcism is performed in a tiny room, which does not work to the scenes advantage as everything feels cramped. Things become more comedic when the Devil is summoned and he just walks into the room like a normal person. (You think there would be more of a dramatic entrance). Vlad Len who plays the Devil does have this cool Viking look to his character and the black eye contacts are a nice touch. It’s just the weird voice filter and off sync dialogue makes him come across way goofier then scary.

The movie finally comes to an end, but not without that classic horror trope of a squeal bait. Some bits of information feel like they are missing from the story, such as how Mara came to be possessed in the first place. It feels like Hassan Zee missed an opportunity here to make this more unique.  I don’ know his background, but I feel he should have pulled more from Islan’s folklore or incorporated the Spiritus church in a different way. It is hard to tell of Hassan wanted the devil to be scary or come across as the parody as it is shown on screen. As of right now,  Possession of Mara is just a poor imitation of a exorcism film, but does provide some laughs and a lot to talk about in terms of how it all plays out.