Review: My Best Friend's Exorcism (Damon Thomas, 2022)

                               My Best Friend's Exorcism's Girl Squad  (Damon Thomas, 2022)
 

I'm not immune to the plethora of horror film texts these days that look to the decade where I came of age--the 80s--with cultural nostalgia.  For me, it's largely the needle drops, for my tastes were formed by postpunk and new wave music from that period.  Likewise, I'm drawn to horror centering on women protagonists, so Damon Thomas's recent adaptation of Grady Hendrix's novel, My Best Friend's Exorcism, hits many of the marks.  The film zeroes in on Abby (Elsie Fisher) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller), best friends in the emotional hellscape of high school, who along with their two buds, Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu) and Glee (Cathy Ang), head to a girl's night of fun at Margaret's parents' summer cabin-in-the-woods.  Of course, the girls decide to pull out the Ouija board and see if any spirits are around, but initially their only surprise visitor is Margaret's crass and excessively horny boyfriend, Wallace (Clayton Johnson).  Oh, and the 5 of them decide to take LSD--although it never actually appears to work.  Abby and Gretchen decide to check out an abandoned and supposedly haunted house in the woods, because 80s horror film vibes, but are soon separated by a presence mimicking their voices and leading them astray.  I'm not giving too much away to say that something strange happens to Gretchen.

                                  Abby and Gretchen's charming (and queer leaning) friendship

While I'm sure viewers will read My Best Friend's Exorcism anyway they want, I could not help but be charmed by how adorably queer Abby and Gretchen are--even while trying to fit in to the requirements of girlhood circa 1988.  I mean, they both want to "marry" Boy George, for goodness sake, but Abby kindly is willing to relinquish The Culture Club lead singer to Gretchen, as long as she can just live with them both.  Their friendship has a heartbreaking time limit though, for Gretchen is moving two states away with her snobby Christian parents.  This note of melancholy hovers over the entire film as Abby tries desperately to help Gretchen at every turn.  Meanwhile, Gretchen's transformation through possession hits very few original notes.  She basically becomes a mean girl to all of her friends, and hurts them in a variety of personal and creative ways.  What happens to Margaret is the most disturbing, and gets some good gross-out moments into the film.

                                      The Lemon Brothers perform for their High School

I keep telling other people that have lived through the 80s, that culturally, in many ways, we're right back to where we started.  Fear of nuclear annihilation because of Russian aggression?  Check.  Prejudice and hatred toward gender fluidity and non-normative gender performance?  Check.  The rise of the religious right and their endless culture war?  Check.  Fierce fighting over women's bodies and reproductive health?  Check, Check, Check!!!  Yet, My Best Friend's Exorcism's approach to Evangelical Christianity is relatively gentle and amused in its critique, especially when it comes to The Lemon Brothers and their zeal for Jesus.  Unsurprisingly, they are hired to "perform" their literal song and dance at the private religious school to which Gretchen, Abby, Margaret, and Glee attend, espousing the pleasures of "faith" and "fitness." The Brothers are a trio of Himbos that run around, lift weights, and shout about religion with delight.  Yet, when Christian spots the sulking Gretchen in the crowd, his face turns from pleasure to horror, as he seemingly witnesses something lurking in her depths.  Since he possesses "the sight," when Abby searches him out after employing every other avenue to help her best friend, he tells her of the demon within.  The pair decide to go back to Margaret's parents' cabin and perform an exorcism.

            It's not an exorcism film without some gratuitous backbends and body mortification

Once the exorcism is underway, the focus on Abby and Gretchen's friendship veers a bit, as Christian's humorous approach to exorcising demons takes center stage.  Of course, when things get messy, he freaks out and runs away, leaving Abby to her inevitable standoff with the demon.  Then....things just kind of end.  Full disclosure, the last half hour of the film gets tedious, and you'll want to stick around to find out what happens, but there are no shocks or twists involved. While the film is a fun riff on Heathers with exorcisms, unless you're plugged into the 80s nostalgia train, and willing to take that ride, the film is not very groundbreaking.  Still, it's fun, and streaming on Amazon Prime.

Review: Soft and Quiet--Beth de Araújo (2022)

 

Ringleader "Karen" Emily (Stefanie Estes) from Soft and Quiet  (2022)

I've eagerly followed Beth de Araújo's Soft and Quiet ever since it premiered at SXSW, but had not had the chance to see it before, as it's just emerged onto Netflix recently.  The film primarily follows Emily (Stefanie Estes), a Gwyneth Paltrow-looking woman and kindergarten teacher, meeting up with some like-minded women after what appears to be a typical school day.  Yes, I had read about the film, so I knew that "like-minded" equated with "Nazis," but I still did not understand for what I had signed up.  Emily cries heartfelt tears in the bathroom as she eyes a pregnancy test.  Is it positive or negative?  Turns out that Emily is not becoming a mother today, something she desperately wants to experience, and as the film unfolds, this viewer felt pretty damn glad about it.

The camera stays close to Emily as it follows her out of the bathroom to a sidewalk, where she sees one of her pupils waiting for his mom. The first hint of horror occurs as a Hispanic female custodian loudly pushes a cart past Emily and the boy, blocking out any conversation they may be having.  The booming sound of the wheels on the pavement, and the blank look on the custodian's face as she goes about her work, highlight the mundane qualities of the job.  Yet, Emily seems inordinately disturbed by the woman's presence, and convinces young Brian to confront the custodian, and demand that she not mop the floors until all the students have left school.  Once Brian's mom shows up, Emily leaves with a pastry box in hand, walking on a winding journey through the woods, ultimately arriving at a local church, where a group of women, friends old and new, are meeting.  Only when Emily opens the box on her homemade pie do we get our first clue--there's a swastika carved into the top, and everyone chuckles.  "It's just a joke," replies Emily, but it's anything but.

This group of white women start to air their grievances regarding the world in which we all live, although their discussion is littered with racial slurs as they lay their victim cards one-by-one.  Marjorie complains that she was passed over for a promotion for a "brown" woman, and dismisses her boss's reasoning--that she does not have the proper "leadership skills."  Jessica, a mother of four with another on the way, talks about her generational membership with the Klan, and that she's now more invested in "Stormfront." Kim wants to put her journalism degree to work by creating a newsletter full of white supremacist talking points.  Alice eagerly takes notes for the group, and Leslie, the youngest and newest member of this coffee klatch, misses being told what to do--much like what she experienced when under the protection of a white nationalist group during her time in prison.  All of these women seem incredibly "normal" on a surface level, but this meeting of the "Daughters for Aryan Unity" is much more than your average suburban book club.  They each, in turn, complain about the insidious spread of multiculturalism, but understand that they must approach distributing their ideas to the mainstream in a more careful way.  Ergo, the title, Soft and Quiet. Emily and her band of bigots are neither.

                                    a confrontation at Kim's market sets the group off

Let me be clear: this film will make anyone with empathy or a conscience incredibly uncomfortable, as it should.  The film is shot in what appears, through the magic of invisible editing, as a 91 minute long take, with events unfolding in real time.  This technique creates some really effective discomfort and dread, for even if viewers think the "Mothers for Aryan Unity," are ignorant, bigoted, awful people, Araújo and her DP, Greta Zozula, never turn away from remaining close-up and tight with these women.  However "soft and quiet" they may appear on the outside, their inner rage is just waiting to find an outlet--a bitter cauldron of resentment and entitlement that gets unleashed on two unsuspecting mixed-race sisters, Anne and Lily.

Significantly, the aggressions that Emily and her gang release onto unsuspecting women are entirely Macro, not Micro.  Anne and Lily unfortunately stop by Kim's market for a bottle of wine while Emily, Marjorie, Leslie, and Kim are also there to do the same.  Tensions escalate quickly, as the women surround the sisters, harassing them verbally and blocking their exit.  They are just about to make it out the door, when Emily turns on them, riling up the other women into a frenzy.  You know things are bad when Emily's husband, Craig, is the level-headed one who tries to calm everyone down.  I won't give it away, but Anne and Emily share a history, and that connection in some ways motivates the women to participate in a petty revenge scheme.  Craig comes along after Emily uses a variety of gay slurs, and makes some serious emasculating comments that would make Tucker Carlson proud.

                                    Emily fights for control with Leslie (Olivia Luccardi)

The rest of the film follows Emily and her gang of angry "Karens" as they decide that a home invasion is the proper next step to take, wanting to mess up Anne and Lily's home.  Marjorie and Leslie repeatedly express envy and disgust that the two women live better than they do, and how their comforts are "unfair"--presumably because they are not white, and therefore revel in a host of multicultural perks and privileges.  I have to give props to Olivia Luccardi as Leslie.  While she initially seems like a woman willing to do anything in order to be accepted by the group, Leslie eventually gives viewers plenty to consider regarding her time in prison, and why she might have been in there.  She is the chief catalyst in escalating events an inflaming mob violence.  Initially, she just seems like a puppy, eager to please and join in the fun, but Leslie has a deep, deep axe to grind--and she possesses an intensely fierce loyalty towards the women she ostensibly just met.  When Anne and Lily return home a moment too soon, all hell breaks loose.  Even cool and collected Emily tearfully apologizes to Leslie several times during the violence unfolding at the house, as she's clearly terrified of Leslie's rage and aggression turning on her.  Leslie spends the rest of the film screaming at everybody, even when she's constantly told to be quiet.

Araújo and Zozula are careful to capture the frenzy of the women as things go increasingly out of control.  While most of the physical violence is offscreen, the implied acts perpetrated on these women of color are incredibly horrifying; yet we are forced to stay with these vicious women until the bitter end.  In many ways, the film reminds me of Sebastian Schipper's Victoria (2015), for as spectators we helplessly witness these women making terrible choices.  I found myself siding with Craig, for he gets out before things go from very bad to even worse.  Nevertheless, Soft and Quiet contains a moment at the very, very end that is oh, so satisfying.  You do have to sit through all the other stuff to get to it, but I think it's a pretty brilliant way to end this truly disturbing film.  A must-see on Netflix right now.