My Best Friend’s Exorcism – Film Review

In 1988 best friends Abby and Gretchen navigate boys, pop culture and a paranormal force clinging to Gretchen. With help from a mall exorcist, Abby is determined to compel the demon back to the pits of hell — if it doesn’t kill Gretchen first.

One thing’s for sure when it comes to Damon Thomas‘ feature-length adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism – it’s quite faithful. That, and the fact that it has an entirely different atmosphere and tone. That may sound contradicting, but you’ll have to trust me on that.

The world in this film feels like an entirely different world than the one that was presented to us in the excellently chilling novel of the same name. It’s incredibly frustrating because the book is legitimately unnerving to read, seeing how the story plays out. The film aims to be a more light-hearted horror comedy that’ll make you nostalgic for the ’80s.

So, it’s kind of Stranger Things except with exorcisms. Sounds like fun, right? Well, thankfully, it mostly is, despite the tone throwing me for a massive loop. It’s a fairly straight-forward horror-comedy that doesn’t do anything too exciting or new, but it’s certainly a fun and entertaining film to watch in time for the Halloween season.

Jenna Lamia wrote the script for this film, and while it is fairly faithful, there are a few changes that work quite nicely. It’s one of those strange horror films that will make you laugh and smile one scene, and then make you feel creeped out the very next. The tones don’t always mesh together, but it mostly works.

My favorite aspect to this film was definitely the two lead performances from Elsie Fisher and Amiah Miller in the roles of Abby Rivers, and Gretchen Lang, respectively. The chemistry these two share on-screen is unbelievably believable and real. Never once did I question whether or not these two were actually best friends.

The performances aren’t awards-worthy or anything, but for the type of film this is trying to be, they work marvellously. Fisher gets to play the scared best friend character, while Miller surely had the most fun here, playing a possessed Gretchen Lang, who is otherwise just an average teen girl.

If you’re looking for a relatively by-the-numbers horror film that will act as a fun watch with a group of friends with some drinks and some snacks, My Best Friend’s Exorcism should likely do the trick. But if you’re looking for a clever, innovative, and incredibly bold horror outing, you should definitely look somewhere else.

Although quite familiar and predictable, My Best Friend’s Exorcism is an entertaining horror-comedy that manages to pack just enough thrills and chills throughout.