by A.J.
Night 10: Teenage Horror Night
"Dollars to donuts it's demonic possession."
Those concerns get pushed
to the background after a terrifying night in the woods. Along with their friends Glee (Cathy Ang) and
Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu), and Margaret's obnoxious boyfriend, Wallace (Clayton Johnson), they take LSD, but Abby and Gretchen wander into a
dilapidated cabin, rumored to be haunted. Gretchen is attacked by someone, or some thing, but they are not sure what was a hallucination and what was real.
After the attack, Gretchen's behavior changes and this is
when the movie switches gears to horror. At first Gretchen is withdrawn and strung out, then she
seems to gain confidence and a new mean personality. The change in her personality and the cruel, hurtful acts she inflicts on her friends happen gradually and believably in scenes that add tension and the supernatural, specifically demonic possession to the story. The final act, that is the exorcism, is horror-comedy and
even gets goofy thanks to Christopher Lowell as Christian Lemon, the youth
minister bodybuilder performing the exorcism. This gear switch will either work
for you or it won't. By this point I cared enough about the characters to want
to see their story through and hoped things worked out for them (you can never
tell with horror, even a horror comedy). The few scenes with special effects
are well done. One CGI effect in particular is as strange as it is grotesque.
My Best Friend's
Exorcism belongs in the same vein as the meta-horror movies Happy
Death Day and Freaky (Christopher Landon, the director of those
movies, is a producer here), though it lacks the self-awareness that helped
make those movies so much fun. Here, the fun comes mainly from the performances
and a willingness to be silly in certain scenes. Director Damon Thomas and
writer Jenna Lamia, adapting the Quirk Books published novel by Grady Hendrix)
have made a movie that is most of all about friendship and that is why it works
no matter the genre.
My Best Friend's Exorcism is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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