The Chosen (2015)
Starring Kian Lawley, Elizabeth Keener, Angelica Chitwood
Directed by Ben Jehoshua
All hail YouTube! There – I’ve said it. From the internet website where if someone watches 1,000 videos of you grooming your cat or your snot-nosed little child singing “Let it Go” from Frozen for the umpteenth time, chances are that you’ll attract some attention… positive, negative, or otherwise. Which leads us to the subject of director Ben Jehoshua’s possession thriller The Chosen, starring YouTube sensation Kian Lawley.
Now, I don’t know what makes this guy an internet sensation (nor do I care), but apparently someone saw some of the ENDLESS hours of video he’s posted and offered him a spot in this movie. After I checked the film out, I can say he’s not that bad. Not that I think De Niro and Pacino have anything to worry about, but he’s off to a somewhat respectable start – I just think he needs a little bit more of a structurally sound vehicle to showcase his potential.
The Chosen stars Kian as Cameron, a young man who is acting somewhat as a caretaker to his niece, Angie (Mykayla Sohn), while his big sis (Angelica Chitwood) is attempting to climb back from the struggles of addiction. There’s a mish-mash of other family members, like catatonic Grandpa (Harv Popick), bedridden Grandma (Barbara Goodson), unemployed loser Uncle Joey (Chris Gann), and Cameron’s mom (Elizabeth Keener).
The majority of those I’ve listed above don’t really play a whole lot towards the storyline’s lifeblood (outside of Cameron and Angie), but we’ll just go with what we’ve got, and what we have is a demon that has affixed itself to little Angie (possession backstory from another character NOT related to the Brady bunch – sarcasm). In any event, little Angie now has this demon stuck to her like one of those house guests that just won’t leave, and Cameron finds out from a previous survivor of the same ordeal that if he starts offing family members (the useless ones, mind you), he’ll be able to rescue little Angie’s darkened soul.
He begins picking off various members of the household, and with each one dispatched, the chance for his niece to be saved grows closer and closer, but the hitch is… NOPE! I’ll stop right here for all of you spoiler-hatin’ freaks (can’t blame you), but I’ll just say this – possession films are a dime a dozen these days, and unfortunately this one looks like it could be stuck on ABC’s Family Channel once some of the language gets edited. It’s very bland, the characters don’t even show up on the radar as people you’d care about, and the day where I say that the YouTube personality was the one with the most memorable performance is the day I’m going to get custom-fitted for a straightjacket… Well, they better have a chunky-sized one because I’m not lyin’.
The story is hokey, and the CGI is reprehensible (why is it everyone who’s possessed lately has blacked-out eyes and a widening mouth)? There’s may be one or two moderate jump scares (could be more, I was almost falling asleep), and the conclusion is lackluster in a kind and giving sense. My advice? Pass on by because The Chosen isn’t really much of a choice at all.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
