In our current situation of highly infectious disease upsetting the entire world around us, the possibility of losing everything is all too real. The distant time of 2019, when everything was relatively normal, seems so foreign now, but the specter of disaster was always lurking just out of sight – its unpredictability making it all the more devastating when it did strike.

Jim (Gerald Chew) has just lost his long-term job and is adrift in life. For a middle-aged man in class-conscious Singapore, opportunities are incredibly limited. Too ashamed to even tell his family what’s happened, he picks up spare cash where he can as a rideshare driver, doing his best to cling to the upscale life he once had. But, as the situation grows more desperate and the farce grows harder to maintain, whispers of the past become increasingly louder, hinting that something more sinister might be at work.

Repossession is essentially two films in one. The first is a drama about pride, loss, and not wanting to let your loved ones down, but knowing that doing so is inevitable. The second is a horror about demons that infect lives, destroying because they can. It’s scary when it wants to be, but the scares usually take a backseat to the drama, the genre of the film seeming to shift with Jim’s mood. It’s an interesting tactic, but not one that really works in a film this grounded. The supernatural elements often feel out of nowhere, or like an afterthought. They’re not always given the emotional weight needed to fit with the rest of the film, which leaves the viewer thinking, “Why should I care?”

The film is more than halfway over before any indication is given that it’s a horror film, which will likely lessen the appeal for those who came for the horror. It’s good that Repossession has the serious tone it has; the more tragicomical or fantastical tones of, say, Repo! The Genetic Opera or Boys in the Trees are better suited to rapid changes of genre than the more realistic Repossession, but this also causes the film to feel disconnected from itself. Had the horror plot been hinted at a little sooner, it could’ve been a masterpiece.

Genre-juggling aside, I lovingly must call Repossession a tragedy. In tragedies, if Character A had just done X or Y instead of Z, their whole sad ordeal could be avoided. But they can’t do X or Y because they’re Character A, and therefore, to do anything but Z would not be in their nature. Even when menaced by ghosts, demons, or run-of-the-mill unsettling rideshare passengers, tragedies are tragic because they are human. And for many of us humans, Jim is someone we just might recognize if we looked in the mirror. And that is where the true terror of Repossession lies.

Repossession can be watched now for free on Plex.

7 out of 10