My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2022)- Movie Review

What do you get when you take a cast of literal nobodies and put them in a movie based on a best selling novel by one of the best horror writers working today?

Not much…

Let’s discuss.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism is 2022 horror / comedy brought to us by writer Jenna Lamia and director Damon Thomas and is based on the 2016 novel by Grady Hendrix. If the only person you know out of those three is Grady Hendrix—you’re not alone. Jenna Lamia has a handful of TV episode writing credits under her belt and is known more for being a character actress on television than a writer and Damon Thomas is primarily a television director with a couple straight to DVD movies to his credit.

Yeah, not a great start, but it’s based on a beloved novel, that’s gotta mean something right?

Oof… well, I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t impressed.

The film focuses on best friends Abby and Gretchen as they navigate their teenage years. They are a symbiotic pair. Abby has the brains and the attitude and Gretchen is adorable. They have the perfect relationship, but Gretchen is about to move two states away. These last few months of school are their last gasp, which drives them to take more risks. Risks like skinny dipping, dropping acid, and playing with a ouija board. Oh, and visiting a satanic murder cabin in the woods. While Abby escapes unscathed, Gretchen isn’t so fortunate. She’s got a passenger riding shotgun, a passenger who has his sites on destroying everyone in Gretchen’s life. Will Abby find a way to free Gretchen from the grasp of her demon lover, or will they all go down in flames?

Let’s be real. This movie sucked.

I wanted to like this movie. I was so excited to see it. It took me a couple weeks to wear Leslie down enough to let us move it up the queue—and half an hour in, I was tempted to scroll through my instagram.

The film has an amazing synth wave and licensed musical score, but that’s where the positives end.

My biggest gripe with the film is that it feels like it was written by a middle-aged person who has no recollection of what high school is like. All the parents are evil, all the teachers are evil, all male characters are evil.

This would be fine if the lead characters were even slightly likable.

Abby and Gretchen are supposed to be our leads. We’re supposed to be heartbroken by Gretchen’s evil turn, but Abby is so thoroughly unlikable and does things that no one would ever do. Neither of these characters is 3-Dimensional. Everyone in the film is a stereotype.

No, that’s not right.

Every character is a poor imitation of characters from Mean Girls. You’ve got the jock / mean girl, Margaret, who is derailed by her desire to lose weight Ala Regina George and just like Regina, she has a mindless toadie named Glee. Gretchen is the Cady Heron of the story with Abby being the outcast best friend just like Lizzy Caplan played. I mean, I’m fairly certain there’s lines taken word for word from Mean Girls and other films.

It’s not an homage of you flat out steal the material and do it at lower quality.

The bottom line is, I hated everyone in this film. Everyone is a bag of dicks. This film is a bag of dicks.

I mean everything in this movie is low rent.

Both the practical and cgi effects are terribly executed and unconvincing. They couldn’t even pull off a decent projectile vomit effect.

The writing is subpar, the directing feels stilted.

The acting is wooden.

The only reason this film got made was to attempt to cash-in on the waning retro 80’s film craze, but it misses the mark entirely.

Skip this one folks.

If you do need to punish yourself for some great sin, you can find this streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.