The Possession of Hannah Grace

The Possession of Hannah Grace

Starring Shay Mitchell, Stana Katic, Grey Damon, Kirby Johnson

Directed by Diederik Van Rooijen

The Story:
Young Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson) is possessed by a demon, and after an exorcism failed to drive it out of her, her father kills her in order to prevent the demon from getting stronger.  Three months later, Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell) - a former cop who's now a recovering alcoholic after a traumatic event on the job - gets a job at the local hospital, working the midnight shift in the morgue.  Hannah's body arrives, and soon things start getting strange.  Is it really the demon inside Hannah causing it, or is Megan suffering hallucinations from her PTSD mind?

The Synopsis:
Ever since "The Exorcist" turned heads (get it?) and caused people to literally run out of the theater in fright, Hollywood has tried desperately to find its next big exorcism movie, and pretty much has failed on every end.  "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" comes closest to re-capturing that same horrific magic, but that film was more split between demon horror and courtroom drama than a straight-on horror film.  Through the slew of wannabe classic exorcism films - "The Last Exorcism," "The Devil Inside," "The Vatican Tapes," "The Rite," "The Possession," "Deliver Us From Evil," and so on - Hollywood still hasn't managed to really terrify audiences.  Then came along "The Possession of Hannah Grace," and yet again Hollywood failed to deliver on a decent exorcism film, instead relying on old horror tropes and a tantalizing possibility that ends up falling flat on its back.

That possibility is asking the question: "what happens after a failed exorcism?"  It could've been interesting to see the after-effects of a botched job, but essentially that question only exists to supply the early narrative.  The film opens where the majority of these films end, with an extreme exorcism that's filled with horror and action, and actually sets up the film nicely for what could've been an exciting thrill-ride.  Unfortunately, they seemed to focus their entire budget on that opening sequence, resulting in the remainder of the film being set in one location, with a few nice effects, but nothing else of substance.

After the demon wasn't exercised out of Hannah Grace, her father kills her and somehow, someway, for some reason, keeps her body for three months.  The audience never learns why he kept her body for that long - and honestly we don't want to know - but eventually it ends up at the morgue at a Boston hospital, where new employee-with-a-past Megan is running the graveyard shift.  After taking the body, she begins noticing things happening around her that's unexplained, slowly culminating to the eventual titanic blow-up that we've seen in countless films of this caliber.

The film does have to small pluses going for it - the setting and the effects.  The demon unleashes holy hell on everyone around Megan, resulting in several cracked bones, blood spurts, and loss of limbs, all given with terrific sound effects and practical effects that make the film somewhat unnerving to watch - if it was done in better lighting.  Yes, the film takes place in a morgue, but the film was shot so darkly you couldn't really notice anything really happening.

When it comes to setting, nothing is more terrifying than a morgue.  A place where dead people are housed before burial, it's inherently eerie and unsettling, and the film does a great job of portraying it as a cold, sterile, dark place.  However, other films have done this better, most notably "The Autopsy of Jane Doe," and while the morgue setting allowed some horror to come through, it wasn't enough to hold the story.

The story, as it goes, is rather bare-bones.  Megan was a cop who froze in a time of crisis, and now she's a recovering alcoholic.  Hannah Grace was possessed by some demon.  The other characters exist for a few lines before getting dispatched or just simply lost in the ether.  That's about as much characterization as you get here, which is all well and good because the film runs at a scant 85 minutes, even though it feels a lot longer.  We don't need to know anything more about the characters because, honestly, we just don't care.  Shay Mitchell joins her fellow "Pretty Little Liars" cast members in providing yet another lackluster horror movie (Troian Bellisario's American remake of "Martyrs" fell flat, and Lucy Hale's "Truth or Dare" was an experiment in how long you could actually sit through it without falling asleep), although she does display potential hope for the future if she can shake away from these cookie-cutter roles and find something with more substance.

The Summary:
Despite its eerie setting and decent effects, "The Possession of Hannah Grace" becomes yet another tired, cliche-ridden exorcism film that tries to set itself apart but fails on every end.

The Score: D+