I applaud any film attempting to bridge the challenging conversations of soldiers’ mental health. It’s an important issue that doesn’t get a lot of the attention it deserves. Carl Rimi’s new film iPossessed tends to lean a little heavily into haunted house concepts, but any awareness helps. About a month ago, I reviewed the more mainstream ghostly dramedy My Dead Friend Zoe, a film containing similar subject matter and highlighting real statistics regarding suicides in the armed forces. According to the American Addiction Centers website, “In 2020, there were 6,146 Veteran suicides, which averages to 16.8 Veterans dying by suicide every day. Additionally, in the two decades between 2001 and 2020, the prevalence of mental health or substance use disorder (SUD) among participants using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) rose from 27.9% to 41.9%.”

iPossessed inherently asks the audience to notice the small “i” in its title, granting the perception that iPhones and exorcisms are on the horizon. But any astute viewer will see through the veneer in the film’s setup. Beyond the demons, blood, and gore, there are some internal struggles worth unpacking. In an interview, Rimi tells WSVN Channel 7 News, “It’s more the people that are there; it’s their possession, their demons they’re holding in. Hence the ‘i’ in the ‘Possessed.’”

The movie concerns Rimi’s Tad Volo, inviting a group of friends and family to his newly purchased remote farm after returning home from serving in the Army. However, a night of housewarming celebration takes a turn when a weird text message causes his sister Zoe to become possessed. The group is given the chance to save Zoe, but they must survive the demon’s night of psychological mind games and deal with their buried secrets before 6 AM. This includes Tad facing his PTSD from being in an elite sniper group, where the loss of a fellow Army Ranger has caused hallucinogenic disruptions through Tad’s profound guilt. Possessed Zoe also works on the others, dredging up irredeemable, appalling actions from their pasts as well.

Rimi, a comedian, serves as a multihyphenate hat rack behind the camera by wearing the co-writer-co-director-producer-star-etc. roles and loading his Instagram with production updates and alerts to test screenings and festival showings. To say this is a labor of love for Rimi doesn’t even begin to do the expression justice. But, though Rimi is marketing the hell out of his film, I had a difficult time taking iPossessed seriously.

During the cold open of the new Cranked Up Films movie, I watched as a woman frantically called a 911 operator to insist she would be the final of four victims in a house massacre that evening as a brawny farmhand carried an ax and a burlap sack across the front lawn. Both characters then unalive themselves, setting up a mystery for the audience to uncover. The brevity of the scene, less than two minutes, keeps the pace brisk, and there’s a moment where you think Jerry Sommer and Carl Rimi’s little indie feature may deliver a chilling, memorable experience.

The film then restarts with a new set of characters, including the ripped Rimi’s Tad Volo cutting up wood blocks like a shirtless Captain America in Infinity War, while Meghan Carrasquillo parks a car like Meadow in the final episode of Sopranos. And I mean that as a reference, the film switches back and forth between these characters for an unnecessary amount of time as if to imply the implication of turning around in a cantankerous neighbor’s driveway.

Charming enough in an awkward way, iPossessed will certainly elicit a smile, even through an inauspicious start. Yet there’s some deft, if unintentional, humor between the quick cuts and Rimi’s raw intensity. As the two walk around Tad’s new home, the same home the man with the ax was headed for during the cold open, there’s strange chemistry. At any moment, there’s the sense that Tad and Carrasquillo’s character Zoe might turn Tad’s stables into the plot of an erotic novel. That is, before it’s revealed that they’re siblings.

Tad’s wildcard energy remains high until you become used to the smoldering broodiness Rimi is channeling, but this is the first of many moments within iPossessed that caustically wears away from the horror experience, undercutting scares with unintentional laughs. Another moment, just after Zoe becomes possessed, sees Tad’s wife Dani (Natalie Stavola) turn to Tara (Tami Lee Boothby) to say, “Tara, you studied this stuff, right? You took those classes in college!” For reference, it takes priests decades to achieve the knowledge and spiritual status to be appointed to such a position, not to mention the nine-plus years to become a priest in the first place. Regardless, it was the moment I absolutely stopped expecting iPossessed to be a solid horror film and embraced the film as more of an unexpected comedy, and I started to have a much better time.

Anyone who reads my reviews knows how much I love independent films, often bringing attention to films most haven’t heard of. I’ve become a huge fan of Cranked Up Films because of their indie spirit as well. However, iPossessed is far from the experience I hoped I’d be getting, especially since the film holds a 9.1 user rating on IMDB (based on 97 ratings at the time of this review). Strangely, as the film persists, introducing us to enigmatic shop owners, an old radio that has a mind of its own, a lengthy country music hoedown in Tad’s barn, and revisiting the farmhand plot from the cold open, Rimi and Sommer’s film becomes bogged down with unfocused side-plots that offer more questions than answers and don’t add any depth to the underlying script nuances. And, with how iPossessed ends, you’ll wonder why some of these excursions happen in the first place.

It isn’t difficult to find entertainment value in iPossessed. For starters, the location, which looks similar to where Cranked Up’s Fresh Hell Trilogy was filmed, provides a solid backdrop for cinematic magic, and you may find yourself looking over the beautiful landscape. The effects work on Zoe’s possession, while digital, isn’t half bad either, and Carrasquillo does a fine job by reigning in her demonic performance. But while that’s all well and good, the film itself never hits the notes it’s going for. I think this may be one of those films you rent with friends and cheer for when the dialogue gets perplexing, or take a shot when characters do something tropey. Though this film wasn’t for me, should the film’s underlying message about battling demons alone help even one viewer out, iPossessed should be considered a success.