My Best Friend's Exorcism

This film probably has the weakest exorcism scene I've ever seen - it's the scary equivalent of an episode of Scooby Doo. A few fun bits involving Chris Lowell aside, Damon Thomas' directorial effort lacks the necessary humor and the scares. The dialogues are also not a clear reflection of the late '80s (methinks?). Elsie Fisher is a good performer, however, I felt she struggled a bit in essaying her role here. I hear this is based on a book, where I'm sure there were enough pages to flesh out the bond between the two leads, but it certainly feels rushed in the film. Amiah Miller is the only performer here who warrants a second look, and she's surely on her way to landing some splendid roles in the near future. Well, at least, the makers chose under-20-year-olds to portray high-schoolers.

Nothing like the book. Not half as good. Terrible in comparison. Was really looking forward to this but it was not good. Having the read the book i was looking forward to seeing the story play out on screen. Unfortunately the story told is not that close to the story of the book. Film loses the charm and character of the original story though there are some similarities. The film is neither funny or scary, it's a bit of a mess. Cast are good apart for the whole Lemon brothers rubbish. That was shameful. I'm glad that it was on Prime as I'd be annoyed if I'd paid money to purchase this tripe. Not worth your time.

Its a take on my generations typical scare genre, a case of excorsism, devilworship and girls coming of age flirting with the ouija board, at a pyjamaparty when caretakers takes a late night bartrip, and leaves the teen alone at home.

Its also a sting of irony on the issues of sexuality, elaborating anorexia, in a more or less sugarfree story, with not much above average acting from well known female cast, and as innocent pupils of a catholic high school they swear unreasonably far too much.

The dressing code and script is without doubt written and sewn together by people that hasnt lived through the 80's, the best hit must be the dedicated musical score and a few moments of real fright but not enough for a grumpy old man like me. It might as well stay outta the silverscreen theaters because it lacks the heart and mind of the 80's.

Overall: My Best Friend's Exorcism is lightweight and fun, with a few great moments, but it felt a little bland during some sections. It was worth watching, but it's pretty average.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I do because they got some stuff *so* right, but overall it felt pretty lackluster for most of the film. I think it's a solid 5.5/10 and if they had made some of it a little less generic it could have easily hit a 7 with the things they did right.

The good: They have a couple of awesome scenes/effects that got me. They've got some good jokes. They have a fun tertiary character, but unfortunately don't use him enough. The production quality is great, all the actors seemed ok, and the overall tone is quite fun.

The not-so good: They spend a lot of time slowly panning through bland scenes and not adding to the film. They don't have quite enough characterization outside of "these girls are quirky friends", "these girls are shallow bullies", and "these jocks are soooo mean". They didn't lean in enough with the side characters and some of the more interesting bits, and spent a lot of time on cookie-cutter stuff that wasn't memorable.

A great premise and a good book. Could have been Booksmart meets The Exorcist. But Elsie Fisher is awful as Abigail which torpedos most of the film's promise and none of the cast are helped by a very lazy and poorly crafted script. The whole films feel very rushed, there's no connection to the main characters as most of the back story and bonding has been ditched I'm favour of getting to the horror elements faster. Which leads to the final strike against this film, in that it's about as scary as an episode of Scooby Doo. Constantly shifting in time between young teen/family friendly and adult. It just never really knows what it's doing. Amiah Miller does however deliver a good performance despite the bad material and myopic direction she's been given.