Possession is a cinematic masterpiece that defies usual storytelling. Directed by Andrzej Żuławski and brought to life through a remarkable screenplay, this film is a captivating exploration of love, obsession, and psychological disintegration. Released on June 27, 1981, Possession stands as a unique and profound work of art in the horror and psychological thriller genres. To know the complete story continue to read our Possession Ending Explained article.
Warning: This article contains “Possession spoiler”. If you haven’t seen the movie, Don’t Go further.
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Possession Plot & Ending Explained
The film begins with Mark returning to his wife and son in West Berlin after a long assignment. He admits that he hasn’t been faithful to her while on assignment, and Anna feels their marriage has altered. Mark meets with his bosses for a debriefing and is hired as another man who wrote romantic sentiments to Anna. Anna’s only friend confirms that there’s been a long-term affair going on, and she tells Mark that she wants a divorce. Mark doesn’t intend to battle for her but is angry that her wife has been duplicitous.
Mark sets an appointment with Anna in a nearby cafe to settle the terms of their divorce. When Anna arrives, Mark tells her that he will provide a monthly allotment for their son, but he doesn’t want to see him again. Anna is stunned by Mark’s callousness and they end up arguing about her affair. Mark drowns his sorrows with alcohol for a whole week and starts hallucinating from the effects of the alcohol.
After recovering from his withdrawal symptoms, Mark finds his young son alone in their dirty apartment. He shows him the toy boat that Anna’s Lover had gifted him some months ago. Hours later, Anna arrives, looking flustered. Mark takes care of her and threatens to throw her out of the apartment if she doesn’t break things off with her lover.
Meanwhile, Mark is woken up by Anna’s Lover, who tells him that Anna is in his apartment and he will be the one to take care of her. Anna lies about going to her friend’s house, but Mark knows she is lying and tries to beat her. When he gets home, Anna laughs with their son and seems to be back to her old self. Mark’s frustrations cause Anna to flee from the apartment, and he runs after her. A truck swerves to Miss Anna, who has walked into the middle of the road.
Mark hires a detective to monitor Anna’s movements. The next morning, Anna arrives at the apartment and starts doing chores. Mark is frustrated and tries to ask her about her problem. Unexpectedly, Anna takes an electric knife and almost slices her throat open with it. Mark yanks it away and applies first aid to her wound. Anna says goodbye for a mysterious reason, and Mark agrees.
The detective follows Anna around the city, pretending to be a property manager inspecting her apartment. Anna maniacally offers him a glass of wine, but she breaks the wine bottle. Anna sneaks up behind him and kills the detective with the broken wine bottle. Meanwhile, the teacher visits the apartment and asks to talk to Mark about the son.
Mark and Anna are friends who have been involved in a mysterious case involving a tentacled creature. The detective assigned to Anna’s case disappeared last night, and Mark is asked for the address of Anna’s apartment. Anna mopping the floor and revealing that she had a miscarriage while Mark was on assignment. In retaliation, Anna beats the detective and steals his gun, killing him with his hormone gun.
Mark finds a package containing a videotape taken by the Lover, detailing Anna’s monologuing about good and evil. Anna confesses to having a miscarriage and a mysterious episode while on the subway, where blood pours out of every orifice, revealing that her baby was dead. Mark tells Anna’s Lover the address of Anna’s apartment, and the Lover heads there to seduce Anna, who is dazed and twitchy. He shows her a packet of exotic pills from India and wishes to get some hormone treatment from Anna. Anna shows him the bedroom where she keeps the tentacled creature and the refrigerator where she keeps the dismembered body parts of her victims.
Anna stabs the Lover with a knife, and he flees the apartment with his injured ass. Mark goes to the bar where the injured Lover is waiting to help with Anna’s mental illness but doesn’t want to curb her madness. Inside the bar restroom, he whacks Anna’s Lover in the head with a ceramic toilet seat cover and stages the scene to look like he disappeared from a drug overdose.
Mark then sets the apartment on fire to continue the erasure of all evidence that could lead the police to Anna. When he gets home, he is amazed by the sight of the friend choking on her blood because Anna seriously wounded her. He grabs her unconscious body and bathes her, reaching a new understanding.
Mark makes plans to run away together, but Anna is only concerned about keeping the creature with her. She killed all those people because she believed they wanted to take the creature from her. The mysterious creature has taken root in her mind, body, and soul, and she sees it as a deity she’s bound to worship.
The Lover’s mommy informs Mark that Anna’s apartment has been blown to smithereens, and her son’s body was found in the bar. Later that night, Mark leaves his son under the care of the teacher and returns home to find Anna copulating with the tentacled monster. She has quietly accepted that her son is gone but doesn’t want to live in a world where he is dead.
Possession Ending Explained
The following day, Mark’s former employer tries to persuade him to go back to his old job. Nonetheless, he refuses. Mark goes to the friend’s apartment, but the police are already there waiting for him. A shootout ensues, and the police injure Mark. He escapes into a building and climbs up a stairwell. Anna appears and approaches Mark upstairs. Behind her is the creature, who has transformed into a perfect counterpart of Mark but with green eyes. It’s implied that the creature transformed into Mark because that is the version she wanted Mark to be. Mark is about to shoot the creature when the police arrive and shoot the couple multiple times.
Anna crawls to her husband and dies in his arms. Meanwhile, the creature appears unharmed. It escapes the building as Mark jumps to his death from the top stairwell. The Anna-lookalike teacher breaks off to take care of the son. One day, the creature, who still looks like Mark, knocks on her door. The son senses that the creature will bring evil and asks the teacher not to open the door. Although the creature looks like his dad and the teacher looks like his mother, the son knows that every version of his parents is destined for tragedy. To escape this hellish version of his family, the son drowns himself in the bathtub.
In the very end, the teacher looks with her brilliant green eyes as the creature’s silhouette is seen through the frosted glass door. This indicates the teacher is also one of the strange creatures that control and mimic their human targets before blending into the unique human family and replacing their lives. With this scene, the movie ends here.
