The latest attempt to reinvent the "possession" film, a la The Possession or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Possession of Hannah Grace isn't nearly as entertaining and/or groundbreaking as either of those films, but it does bring a sort of Sam Raimi-esque Evil Dead-style approach to the table, only nowhere near as good as that series. What it does bring to the table is a somewhat novel concept overall.
For instance, here, the patented exorcism scene occurs in the first five minutes or so, and, as you might guess, it fails miserably, or we wouldn't have a movie in the first place. Fast-forward three months and we meet our main heroine, Megan Reed (former Pretty Little Liar Shay Mitchell), a troubled former cop who went off the deep end after a tragic occurrence on the job led her to drugs and drink, eventually leading to her dismissal.
It also resulted in the end of her relationship with fellow police officer, Andrew Kurtz (Grey Damon, Station 19), who we see picking up the rest of his things from the apartment they once shared at the beginning of the movie. In the meantime, Megan has gotten herself clean, with the help of AA, where she met fellow addict and nurse, Lisa Roberts (Stana Katic, Castle), who helped her get a new job at the local hospital as a morgue attendant on the graveyard shift.
This being a horror movie and all, it naturally isn't long until things go off the rails, beginning with the appearance of an irate, seemingly homeless man demanding to be let into the morgue after hours, which Megan naturally refuses. However, soon after that, a goofy paramedic (stand-up comedian Nick Thune, Venom) arrives and asks for help bringing in a body, leading Megan to take her eye off the ball- guess what happens?
The creepy guy turns out to be the least of her worries, though, as the corpse the paramedic dropped off is none other than the titular Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson, a former gymnast/dancer and contortionist, who does a lot of her own stunts, save the obvious CGI-aided effects). It seems that Grace is dead...but only to a certain extent.
When Megan cuts herself and the blood drops on Hannah's seemingly lifeless body, it triggers her awakening and it isn't long before the bodies start to pile up. But hey- they're in a morgue, conveniently enough, so, you know, the victims don't have far to go. That's helpful, at least.
Kudos to the film for at least trying something new, even if it isn't as radical as Emily Rose, which grafted a courtroom drama into the mix, or as ambitious as the recent, underrated The Exorcist TV series. This one adopts the more time-honored limited setting gambit, but what a setting- the morgue looks fantastic, and the director's idea to use those motion-detected lights was a good one- note that some of them form the sign of the cross, wink wink. 😉 (See the poster at the top of the article.)
But for a low budget horror flick- the budget was in the $6-8 million range, and it grossed around $43 million worldwide, which is not too shabby- it looks great, which is all the more impressive considering the film was shot on a relatively cheap $2000 consumer camera. (Director Steven Soderburgh pulled off an even more impressive feat when he shot Unsane on a freaking iPhone!)
I'm not gonna lie, though, as a former PLL fan, it took some doing to buy Shay Mitchell as a morgue attendant, much less a cop. Although in her early thirties, remarkably enough, she still could pass for a teenager. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's decent in the role. She just looks way too young for the part, quite frankly, albeit extremely easy on the eyes and certainly likable. Perhaps those unfamiliar with the show won't have such preconceived notions getting in their way.
Incidentally, and perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the show they came from, Mitchell is the fourth of her fellow PLL stars to headline a horror flick, with Lucy Hale doing the honors for Truth or Dare, Troian Bellisario starring in the remake of Martyrs, and another erstwhile Hannah, Amber Benson landing the lead in the decent computer screen thriller Ratter. In the battle of the former liars gone Scream Queen, Hale has emerged the victor, with TOD raking in an impressive $95 million on a measly $3.5 million budget, but Mitchell landed herself a solid second place with this one.
All in all, it's not a bad little horror flick, but sadly, the director, Diederik van Rooijen, relies a little too heavily on standard jump-scares instead of trusting the source material to do the heavy lifting for him. The script, by screenwriter Brian Sieve- who also wrote for MTV's Scream: The Series and Teen Wolf- isn't bad, and I get the sense that it would have worked just fine without all the obvious scares, thanks to a bravura turn from Johnson, who contorts her body into some cringe-inducing positions throughout the film, with only occasional CGI-abetted shots that are pretty readily apparent.
But one also gets the sense that the director (who rewrote the script along the way) and perhaps the studio wanted a more conventional horror flick, so that's exactly what we end up with in the end. When are studios going to get that horror fans respond better to more straight-forward material? Probably when mediocre films like this stop making big bucks at the box office. Even then, I'm not sure there's any end in sight to the jump-scare crutch.
Fortunately, there are still filmmakers out there at least trying to do something different, from the warped black comedy of Thoroughbreds to the ambitious ghost story Hereditary, so it's not all bad news. Horror remains one of the quickest ways to turn a fast buck, so as long as that remains the case, they'll keep making them, and every now and then, someone will get one right.
The Possession of Hannah Grace isn't great, but it gets the job done, I suppose, and the cast is decent. I just wish it had the courage of its convictions, and trusted the source material to deliver the goods, instead of falling back on tired jump scares. It has creepy atmosphere to spare, and that morgue location does half the job for the filmmakers, honestly. It manages to be both sterile and modern and freaky and overwhelming all at once.
I will give credit where its due for the director's clever motion-detector lights idea, though Lights Out ultimately makes better use of it. And Johnson does her best to sell her character, contorting her body in admittedly ick-inducing ways throughout the film that make for a worthy addition to the possession victim canon.
But yeah, too much reliance on modern horror cliches don't help matters, unfortunately, leaving this film as sterile as the hospital environment more often than not. And naturally, the film can't resist leaving the door open a crack for a sequel- though, to be fair, it could be interesting, if handled well. Oddly, there's a new trend of sequels often ending up being better than the originals as of late- witness the second installments of Annabelle and Ouija, both of which are far superior to their predecessors- so you never know.
Overall, though, I can't recommend this one much more than as a decent time-waster that will likely be all but forgotten in a few years, save maybe by Mitchell fans, of which there are admittedly quite a few. Beyond that, it's strictly meh-inducing from this horror fan. Better luck next possession! 😈
No comments:
Post a Comment