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My Best Friend’s Exorcism Review
Image Credit: Amazon Studios
Loading...Directed by: Damon Thomas
Written by: Jenna Lamia
Starring:
Elsie Fisher – Abby
Amiah Miller – Gretchen
Cathy Ang – Glee Tanaka
Rachel Ogechi Kanu – Margaret Chisolm
Chris Lowell – Christian Lemon
Clayton Royal Johnson – Wallace Stoney
Ashley LeConte Campbell – Sister Kathleen
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rated R for teen drug use, language, sexual references and some violence.
Grady Hendrix has the potential to become the next Stephen King. The novelist has been churning out excellent work in horror since his first entry into the genre, Horrorstör, released in 2014. Hendrix’s work has a quality that seems well-suited to be adapted to the screen and Horrorstör, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and The Final Girl Support Group have all been picked up for adaptations in various forms to date.
Preceding all those potential films and shows is My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Hendrix’s 2016 novel was picked up for a film adaptation in 2018, with Damon Thomas set to direct. The film has now debuted on Prime Video and successfully adapts the story into a young adult-focused film that stays true to the source’s spirit.
The film is set in the 1980s and focuses on Abby (Elsie Fisher) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller), two high-school best friends. They live on opposite sides of the tracks; where Gretchen lives in a more conservative and upper middle class family, Abby’s parents are less well off and give their daughter a bit more slack. The inseparable pair are part of a larger foursome that also include the bitchy and popular Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu) and the meeker Glee (Cathy Ang).
Conflict is looming on the horizon, though. Gretchen’s family is set to move away at the end of the school year, testing the best friends’ bond. The problems escalate following a get-together at the lakefront cabin owned by Margaret’s parents, where Margaret’s jock boyfriend Wally (Clayton Royal Johnson) crashes and convinces the girls to drop acid. Gretchen and Abby eventually find themselves going to the creepy cabin in the woods, where they get separated after a terrifying discovery and Gretchen is assaulted by an entity of some kind.
Gretchen isn’t quite the same after that, and Abby’s attempts to help her friend backfire when it results in their estrangement. Soon after, Gretchen is looking better than ever, but her demeanor turns dark and dangerous for her friends. Convinced that Gretchen is possessed, Abby enlists the help of a local meathead Christian motivator (Chris Lowell) to get whatever is inside her best friend out – a process that neither are quite prepared for, and one in which Gretchen’s soul hangs in the balance.
The poster for Thomas’ film has the look of a 1980s paperback novel – one can practically imagine pulling the purple cover back to reveal the images of Abby and Gretchen are framed by cutout and are actually part of a larger piece of art on a second cover page. That isn’t a coincidence. The script by Jenna Lamia finds the right chords of Hendrix’s novel, itself an homage to the ‘80s young adult page-turners about supernatural forces looming threateningly over a group of friends.
Notably, the script leans hard into the most essential element of the source – the friendship between Abby and Gretchen. That connection needs to feel authentic for the story to work, and both Fisher and Miller are more than up to the challenge. Lamia alters some details of how things come about in order to tone down the movie slightly and lean more into the comedy than the horror, and while that may be disappointing for some fans of the book it fits the glossy sheen that Thomas is aiming for.
While ‘80s nostalgia is certainly the name of the game these days, My Best Friend’s Exorcism smartly veers away from the same tone established in the likes of Stranger Things and IT. The approach is instead more akin to Jennifer’s Body for the current generation or a demonic Mean Girls, which isn’t a bad summation of the novel’s bones. The tone is shiny and light for much of the film, and while this undercuts some of the more serious aspects of what Gretchen and her friends go through (which touch on sexual assault, eating disorders, and homophobia) it never feels disrespectful to those topics.
The most divisive aspect of this film will be the humor, which is always the hardest balance to strike in a horror comedy. Most of the comedy aspect falls on Lowell’s Christian Lemon, who is a caricature of the kinds of gimmicky faith-based types that would visit schools for pep rallies about the dangers of drugs and D&D during the decade. It’s a teen movie spin on the exorcist and the script (much like the source) plays it broad. Lowell fully understands the assignment and gives Christian a good-natured lunkheaded demeanor; it may be too much for some but it adds some much-needed levity to the final act.
There’s a lot of sentimentality going on here, and that may turn off horror fans that see the R rating and hope for a dark and violent exorcism story. But it clearly never wants to – and in fact shouldn’t be – that kind of movie. There are a couple of big horror moments, but they are there to supplement the story and not serve as the main course. The rest of the film, filled with ‘80s pop needle drops and crimped wigs, relies on its heart and a kitschy fun that should nicely serve as gateway horror for a younger crowd.
