Common Sense Media Review
By Brian Costello
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Forgettable horror has zombies, demonic imagery, violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Possessed (Rasuk)
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In POSSESSED (aka Rasuk), the boys of a rural boarding school remain in the school while on break under the watchful eye of Zamri (Alif Satar), the substitute warden of the school. Upon returning to the school while still grieving the loss of his family after a car accident, Zamri is warned by a local woman that two boys in the village have recently become possessed. Meanwhile, while exploring the surrounding woods, one of the students opens a mysterious bottle. What emerges from the bottle infects him, and soon he becomes a zombie. Soon, others are bitten and also become zombies, and Zamri, with the help of the surviving students and the returning female students who left the school for the break, must find a way to stop this zombie outbreak from getting any worse.
Is It Any Good?
This is a mostly forgettable zombie movie out of Malaysia. Possessed (aka Rasuk) doesn't really bring anything new to a genre already oversaturated with the flesh-eating undead. This one is centered on teens in a remote boarding school and a substitute headmaster who already has enough problems before this zombie outbreak. There are the obligatory jump scares, gross-out scenes of flesh eating, and something about a cult.
All in all, there's nothing here that hasn't been done before in so many other zombie movies. Furthermore, one hopes that the telecommunication companies of the world will do something about ensuring that cell phones work when young people are out in the countryside and menaced by killers and/or zombies. It's really becoming a crisis situation. Kidding aside, the cliches are plentiful and originality is hard to come by in this movie.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about zombie movies like Possessed. How is this similar to and different from other zombie horror movies you've seen?
Was the violence necessary to the story, or was it excessive? Why?
How do you explain the continued appeal of zombie movies?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : February 15, 2023
- Cast : Alif Satar , Ikmal Amry , Abbas Mahmood
- Director : James Lee
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Horror
- Topics : School ( High School ) , Fantasy
- Run time : 94 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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