Possessor Uncut Stars Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott Talk the Film’s Visceral Violence

As proven with his debut feature film Antiviral in 2012, filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg revealed to horror fans that he wasn’t afraid of delivering unsettling imagery to convey the necessary narrative, a trend he continues with the new film Possessor Uncut. As implied by the name, this version of the film is uncensored and unrestrained in its brutality, an integral component of bringing this story to life. Stars Christopher Abbott and Andrea Riseborough recently detailed their experience of not only seeing the intense special effects in person, but also their reactions to seeing such sequences in the completed film for the first time. Possessor Uncut lands in select theaters and drive-ins on October 2nd.

“I’ll say a lot of the special effects … what’s fun is a lot of it is in camera. Very little is post, you know what I mean?” Abbott shared with ComicBook.com. “So even like the ones where Colin … keeps seeing these particles in the air, it looks like it’s done in post, but it was all real. They had some, like, I don’t know what the f-ck they were. Some machines that are like, I don’t know, like, gravity sh-t. I don’t know what it was. But it was all happening. And I admired Brandon and Karim [Hussain], our [director of photography] for taking the old school approach in that way.”

Possessor Uncut is an arresting sci-fi thriller about elite, corporate assassin Tasya Vos [Riseborough]. Using brain-implant technology, Vos takes control of other people’s bodies to execute high profile targets. As she sinks deeper into her latest assignment Colin [Abbott] Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her.

“It’s very strange when you watch it back. We all watched the film together for the first time at Sundance,” Riseborough continued. “I wanted to watch it in the theater. And then when you’re in a setting like that, apart from you’re having this strangely objective experience of something that you’re very much inside of, you’re also watching it with the rapport of the audience, and it’s such a charged environment. So, in all of that, the first time I watched it, I found it quite difficult to discern how I felt about it. Not how I felt about the film as a film, but how I felt specifically about the violence.”

She continued, “I think we’ve talked a lot about Brandon’s ability to really tap into this underlying aggression, violence, anger, that is so hugely prevalent now in the world. And always has been, has it not? I don’t know, has it? It’s a big question. But that he is unafraid to explore the nooks and crannies of what that looks like. So in no way was it a surprise. I mean, I was going into this playing a paid assassin, the best that there is, who completely transforms into somebody else’s world undetectably and who really only feels [things] through the thrill of annihilation and destruction, because that’s what she has left of herself.”

Possessor Uncut lands in select theaters and drive-ins on October 2nd.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!