Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
A tedious exorcism story that never fully takes hold
Perfunctory B-movie “The Possession of Hannah Grace” isn’t exactly an earth-shattering entry into the well-worn genre that is the exorcism movie. It doesn’t so much as invite attention to itself as it does to the genre, allowing viewers to ponder the ways in which it does or does not hew to convention, and what that might mean for the state of the exorcism movie some 45 years after Linda Blair puked pea soup all over our collective frontal lobes in “The Exorcist.”
Set in an environment of flickering fluorescent lights and pockmarked poured concrete, “The Possession of Hannah Grace” isn’t really about the possession, nor is it even about Hannah Grace. The film, rather, centers on Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell), a newbie overnight intake assistant at the Boston Metro Hospital morgue whose night is rocked by the arrival of Hannah Grace’s corpse.
A prologue offers the kind of exorcism content we’re familiar with: heavy Catholic iconography, chanting priests, a nubile female body writhing and lashed to a bed. Which is why the most interesting thing about the film is it abandons all that gothic familiarity for a night at the morgue.
One has to wonder just why exorcism films proliferate in the way they do. It’s the landmark success of “The Exorcist,” yes, but there’s something else that tickles our collective unconscious: the fetishism and ritual, the bondage, the young female bodies, seemingly so permeable, so changing, so susceptible to invasion by demons that sound like black metal frontmen.
So that’s why when
“The Possession of Hannah Grace” zigs where it might historically zag we pay attention.
But for all the pondering “The Possession of Hannah Grace” inspires, it’s also true that at a quick 85 minutes, it still manages to feel tedious at times. The dour environment doesn’t help, the humor doesn’t pop, and disappointingly, the scares just don’t land. There are a few jumps and bumps, but there’s no real sense of dread or unease or questioning. We simply watch the events unfold with a full understanding of what’s going on. It’s unfortunate that “The Possession of Hannah Grace” just never fully takes hold.