L'exorcisme de ma meilleure amie

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.

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.

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.

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.

I really enjoyed this book, but this movie misses the mark. I think it would've been better as a miniseries. To recap, this is a story of childhood friendship. A Stephen King says no matter how many friends or family you have in your life, you will never have friends like that again. It's also a coming of age story, and what happens as you and your friends start getting older and branching out. It's a story of high school anxiety and 80s nostalgia (Frusen Glädjé!) . And, front and center, of course it's a story about strange things starting to happen and possible dark forces visiting your hometown. Good stuff for spooky season!

Unfortunately, I don't think the story translated well here. Grady Hendrix's books are usually pretty jam-packed, so I don't see how you could cram everything into 90 minutes. It definitely felt choppy. Key scenes and characters fell flat because they didn't have enough set up. Things happened that seemed pretty random unless you knew the backstory. It felt like they were moving really fast, more like paying homage to major scenes rather than building a story that could stand on its own.

The best parts of the book- the sinister, creeping horror story build, the BFF saga, the 80s nostalgia- don't come across, and the whole thing felt rushed. I had no emotional investment in any of these people. It's the first point that bothers me the most. Why watch a horror movie if it's not even going to be spooky or scary?

Anyway, imo you're left with an empty book recap if you know the story, and I don't even know what you'd get out of it if you didn't. Maybe just a time filler movie to watch during a flight or something to have on in the background.

I really like Elsie Fischer, and she and Amiah Miller turn in good performances for what they were given. Chris Lowell too. They at least keep it watchable (if you know the story, anyway). The other actors were barely given enough material to register. Production was ok. 3 stars for the acting and for putting out a spooky movie in October.