DIRECTOR: Damon Thomas
CAST: Elsie Fisher, Amiah Miller, Cathy Ang, Rachel Ogechi Kanu, Chris Lowell, Clayton Royal Johnson, Nathan Anderson, Michael Wayne Foster, Cynthia Evans
RUNNING TIME: 97 mins
CERTIFICATE: 15
BASICALLY…: A teen girl (Fisher) suspects that her lifelong friend (Miller) may be possessed…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
You can clearly tell that debut director Damon Thomas is aiming for Stranger Things vibes with his adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s pulpy teen novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism. The 80s setting, synth pop hits of the era dominating the soundtrack, ridiculous fashion and hair styles, cultural references left and right, a supernatural presence lurking in the background; nearly everything you’d expect from the Netflix series has somehow found its way into this Prime Video outing.
However, don’t expect anywhere near the same amount of quality as Stranger Things… in fact, don’t expect quality at all, because My Best Friend’s Exorcism is kind of terrible.
Set in 1988, the film revolves around two teens and lifelong best friends, Abby (Elsie Fisher) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller). They’re typically inseparable, even with Gretchen about to move a few states over, but that’s about to change when, one night, they accompany their friends Glee (Cathy Ang) and Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu) to a lakeside cabin for the night. There, a slumber party involving Ouija boards, some LSD tabs, and an abandoned house across the lake leaves Gretchen in a much stranger mood than normal; she’s moodier, more prone to sudden projectile vomiting, and reveals a rather nasty side that makes Regina George from Mean Girls look like Mother Teresa. Abby, not determined to entirely ditch her former best friend, sets out to discover what has happened to Gretchen, eventually coming to the conclusion that she’s been possessed by a demon, and that she needs – what else? – a good old-fashioned exorcism.
Early on, you do start to wonder if there’s any self-awareness on the part of these filmmakers, because the way that it is written, directed, and performed, it almost feels like they’re paying homage to the cheesy, cheap direct-to-video horror schlock of the late 80s, like Sleepaway Camp or Killer Klowns from Outer Space. However, the further it goes along, the more you start to realise that, in fact, there is no homage at play; they really have just made a low-quality horror flick with the kind of lousy effects, wooden acting, and stilted writing you would actually find in one of those older schlock-fests. Not only that, but it feels grossly cynical about it as well; beyond aping the popular Stranger Things aesthetic, My Best Friend’s Exorcism attempts half-heartedly to disguise its blatant trashiness with sensitive themes that it thinks will make the audience think it is smarter than it actually is. Case in point, it tries opening up a discussion about the marginalisation of trauma victims in society (Abby at first attributes Gretchen’s strange behaviour to a possible sexual assault, only to be met with open hostility by everyone around her), but not only does it fail miserably at even having a sensible discussion about the topic, it also feels like it’s just for show since it’s a plot point that’s dropped as quickly as it’s brought up, discarded as soon as it feels it has enough of the viewer’s attention for the rest of its time-wasting existence.
Crucially, this horror-comedy also doesn’t work as either a comedy or a horror, because beyond the fact that it’s neither funny nor scary, it’s all comprised of stuff that you’ve seen many times before, rendering it exceptionally dull. It’s not the fact that it follows the traditional wash-rinse-repeat formula of exorcism movies down to a tee – after all, movies like The Exorcist, The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose have been using it for years, and it’s worked pretty fine for them – but it’s how My Best Friend’s Exorcism makes zero effort to even make these familiar traits the least bit entertaining that drags the movie down. You don’t really get much of a connection with these characters because most of them are very one-note, and the performances are too flat to liven them up, held back by lazy direction and a script that fails to give them anything substantial to work with. Crucially, Amiah Miller finds herself utterly lost as she tries to act psychotic and sinister as the possessed teen, but is directed in a way that makes her seem oddly disengaged and monotonous, even before she comes across the demon. Her friendship with an equally lost Elsie Fisher – both, to reiterate, are perfectly capable actors that happen to be saddled with bad material here – never feels as close or special as they want you to believe, leaving you to watch two people who you honestly don’t care that much about, especially when at least one of them does some pretty horrible stuff to others (yes, there’s a demon involved, but it’s no less hard to come back from certain acts of meanness).
There’s almost no point in watching this film, because there are so many other exorcism movies that are far scarier, smarter, and even funnier than it, not to mention an endless supply of dark teen comedies that have far greater stakes and also a higher body count than this horror movie. Even if you know what you’re going to get before deciding to watch it, you’ll still feel mostly bored because it does nothing with the familiar formula, nor is it well-made or well-acted enough to carry itself through to the finish line. It’s just a lame, uninteresting, and above all toothless piece of schlock that, were it actually released direct-to-video in the 80s, would have wound up in the bargain bin after just a week on sale.
SO, TO SUM UP…
My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a terrible horror-comedy that works as neither a horror nor a comedy, not just lacking scares and laughs but also the filmmaking, performances, and the themes required to make it at the very least a worthwhile and entertaining addition to the exorcism movie line-up.
