If you know me in person, you know I love horror movies. I believe that, when they're done right, they can be some of the most well-crafted cinematic experiences ever. The Possession of Hannah Grace is a good example of a horror movie done right (for the most part). It was released on November 30th of 2018 by Sony Pictures. It was directed by Diederik Van Rooijen (I have no idea how to pronounce that name), and the screenplay was written by Brian Sieve. It stars Shay Mitchell as Megan Reed, Grey Damon as Andrew Kurtz, Stana Katic as Lisa Roberts, Max McNamara as Dave (no last name given), and Kirby Johnson as the titular Hannah Grace, among others. I don't know who any of these actors are, which was very refreshing. I always love discovering new talent. I've been seeing ads for this movie run before every YouTube video I've watched for a good month and a half (thankfully replacing Fallout 76 ads), so i was moderately excited to see it. It looked like just another Exorcist clone, so I went into it that that mindset. I came out of the movie pleasantly surprised. Allow me to explain. Spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk.
I wanna start off by giving a huge thumbs up to the cast. Every actor in this movie did great. Every one of the characters felt real, all thanks the surprisingly good dialogue and the performances by the cast. Every character reacted to the situations they're put in, for the most part, exactly the way a real person would if he/she been put in the same place. I say "for the most part" because the movie does follow traditional horror tropes every so often. Like, for example, Megan had a habit of screaming another character's name loudly every time something spooky happened throughout the first hour of this movie. Another example would be the way certain characters address the scary thing by a pronoun instead of naming them. But, aside from stuff like that, the characters felt very real. Hannah's father breaks down into tears very early into the exorcism scene because he can't stand to see his daughter be in pain. He reacts the same way when he has to burn his daughter's body near the end. Megan's reactions to Hannah doing spooky things were awesome and really made me feel more for her character. The acting was at it's finest when a character died. The camera shook, yes, but it's implied to be because Hannah is manipulating it.
Out of all the actors, the one that deserves the best acting award is Kirby Johnson. She was genuinely terrifying. Hannah's movements had a slippery snake-esque vibe to them, complete with the ever so pleasant sounds of her bones cracking. In the first scene, we see the exorcism that was supposedly responsible for her death. We get to see real Hannah briefly before we're locked in demon Hannah for the rest of it. God, I feel bad for real Hannah. Kirby plays it so well, my Lord. And, when she gets to act as the possessed Hannah (apparently known as "Cadaver", based on the end credits), she does not disappoint. Every time she's on-screen, she is one of the most unnerving things I've ever seen in my life, and I love every second of it. Except for the last ten minutes. In the last ten minutes, Hannah goes from "genuinely creepy demonic entity" to "generic slasher villain". She teleports in front of a cop and rips his throat out, is incapacitated by a couple bullets, pulls the typical "Haha, I'm actually not dead, pranked ya" thing that you'd find in a Halloween movie, and is ultimately defeated by being set on fire. Clearly, what they should've done in The Exorcist, insteasd of using Holy Water and the almighty power of God, is just shoot Regan in the chest seven times. That's what happens in this movie, and it seemed to work just fine. Maybe that's how it works in some cases of possession, but it was a little weird to see it in a possession movie, especially since the usual way to end those movies is with an exorcism. Points for doing something different, but it just didn't seem logical.
Another thing that was a bit weird was the overuse of cheap jumpscares. I get it: It's a horror movie, they have to do something to get the scares going. The problem with that is that this movie was already doing a great job of doing subtle or minute things that were actually creepy (i.e. sensor lights turning on behind Megan at random points, Hannah appearing in the background in various scenes, inanimate objects reacting to Hannah's presence). We don't need for every little thing that happens to have a scare chord attached to it. An alarm blaring, a phone ringing, the scanner malfunctioning, Dave popping up behind Megan for no actual reason other than to exploit the stock scare sound effect. All of that is unneeded. It's not scary, it's irritating. The movie was already doing a good job with the background scares, or with Hannah existing in general. Tone down the jumpscares, do more subtle stuff in the background, and then you'll be fine. It's the same problem that the 2017 It movie had. You'd think Hollywood would've learned, but I guess not. But, I will admit that, when the scares aren't in your face, they work in spades.
I really enjoyed the cinematography in this movie. I had never heard of the director until I saw this movie, and I still don't know how to pronounce his name, but I really like his style. This movie had a good amount of long takes that had the camera following one of the actors and then stopping to focus on a spooky thing, or panning away from the actor in order to show an object that's implied Hannah is near. And I also liked a lot of the creative shots that the director decided was necessary to add into the movie (like the under shot of Dave opening the wall slot thing [I don't know what it's called] that Hannah's body is supposed to be in, or that flashing red jumpscare shot that the trailer showed us). This is a director that clearly has a passion for what he's filming, and he does a good job doing his part to tell this story. I also enjoyed how natural the dialogue felt. It's a part of the reason why these characters feel so real. The way Megan reacts to Dave's completely unneeded jumpscare was exactly the way I would have had I been in that position. I loved the chemistry between Megan and Lisa. You could tell that they've been friends for years, without the movie having to lazily say it. That's why it's even sadder when Lisa ends up dying. When Megan sees her best friend's dead body, she completely freaks out. It's quite sad.
For the life of me, I can't remember if there was a score. There had to have been, but I don't remember anything about how it sounded. But that isn't a bad thing. I actually liked the fact that a lot of the scenes were silent. It added to the creepy ambience of the movie's tone. I just wish I could remember what the score sounded like, if there even was one. Ah, well. Must not have been memorable, if there was one. I don't have very many qualms with this movie, quite frankly. yes, the flaws that it does have are very blatant, but they happen so irregularly that it's not really that big of a problem. I came to this movie with relatively low expectations, and I left it satisfied with what I had seen. This movie did its job and it did it rather well. Oh, also, Kirby Johnson was completely naked during 95% of her screen-time (due to the movie mostly taking place in a morgue). I can imagine that that was not very comfortable to film.
Overall, this movie is much more than just another Exorcist knockoff. It's dark, it's atmospheric, it's creepy. I was pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable it was. That being said: There were way too many jumpscares, the pacing, while admittedly decent, was kinda wonky at times, an over-reliance on shaky cam, and those last ten minutes completely derailed all the suspense that the character of Hannah had built up by turning her into Jason Voorhees. That cannot be ignored, but neither can the good things that the movie does. I'm gonna give The Posession of Hannah Grace a 7/10. I recommend it. If you have the time and the movie, and you're looking to have a fun time watching a horror movie, then The Possession of Hannah Grace might just be the movie that you're looking for.
