High School Possession

Decent watch at best, won't watch again, and can't honestly recommend.

I was excited to randomly find Janel Parrish (Mona, "Pretty Little Liars"), and she's clearly a higher caliber actress than this movie, she sort makes the actors that are doing good look a bit off.

Jennifer Stone does crazy in a wonderful way, but she's so crazy for so long, there isn't much in the way of character work that isn't directly distracting, as they are mostly attention seeking self destructive teen actions.

The movie is also a bit scattered in the plot direction. The title would suggest it's about a possession, but it turns more into a psychological analysis of teenage girls exposed to morals in and out of religion.

It gets preachy, but not in any of the fun ways, well, maybe one of the fun ways.

It's not that is doesn't have some good things about it, but just not enough that I think you shouldn't be watching something else.

This movie was odd. Let me just start off by saying that.

Then I have to continue on by saying that the movie wasn't particularly entertaining or enjoyable. I managed to endure 61 minutes of the ordeal that is "High School Possession", then I just had to turn off the self-inflicted torture. A couple of times leading up to that point I was tempted to turn off the movie, but I opted to give it a chance.

The storyline just never got off of the ground, and I couldn't immerse myself into the storyline. In fact, there was just too many things going on that weren't really adding up, or just seemed way too random. So the movie felt like a befuddled mess of random chaotic scenes shot and edited together.

As for the characters in the movie, well I can't really claim that they had any more appeal than the storyline did. So you shouldn't get your hopes up here. In fact, I can't even remember a single character's name from the movie. It was just so terribly, terribly bland and pointless.

Actually, I was surprised to see the likes of Kelly Hu show up in a movie such as this, and while she did manage to add some worth to the mixture, it just wasn't sufficient to salvage the downward spiraling movie.

I have absolutely no intention of ever returning to watch the rest of "High School Possession", because this movie just failed entirely to capture my attention, much less bring me any sense of entertaining or enjoyment.

My rating of "High School Possession" becomes a generous two out of ten stars. This movie is not worth the time, money or effort. Actually, the best part about the movie, aside from Kelly Hu, was the movie's cover/poster.

When a troubled teen (Jennifer Stone) shows signs of mental illness, her friends (Janel Parrish), mother (Ione Skye) and a minister (William McNamara) must decide how to effectively tackle the serous situation.

Released to TV in 2014, "High School Possession," aka "High School Exorcism," is a school drama/thriller featuring paranormal horror in the manner of "The Rage: Carrie 2," "Satan's School for Girls" (2000) and "From Within." While it's superior to "Satan's School for Girls," it's not quite as good as the other two.

The first hour and 18 minutes are nigh great, as the story establishes the situation described above. Janel plays the protagonist and she's uncertain about the route to take in helping her best friend. The characters are effectively fleshed out and you care about them. There's a reverent quality and you can feel the love and distress of the key characters. Regrettably, the last ten minutes go off the rails with gauche, contrived storytelling. I'm not going to give anything away, but the movie would've worked better if the writers played it straight without resorting to the ridiculous tacked-on twist.

Still, if you can roll with that flaw and the awkwardness thereof, there are a lot of gems to mine in the proceedings, even within the eye-rolling climax. For instance, someone can basically be a good person with a garnishment of nobility, like be a devout churchgoer or whatever, but that doesn't mean they don't have the same weaknesses as other people and face the same universal temptations.

Furthermore, the film brings up interesting issues similar to those noted in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," just without the budget and therefore less artistry and grace (although, again, the first 78 minutes are effective enough). When someone suffers serious mental disorders, like schizophrenia, what is the root cause? Is it merely a physical phenomenon or is there a spiritual source? The secularist would understandably argue that the practice of exorcism is just a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo whereas the believer would contend that the illnesses are the RESULT OF demonic possession. In other words, the teen's possession brought on the symptoms. The latter makes sense in light of the scriptural evidence of Christ delivering people from demonic spirits that induced insanity, muteness and deafness.

"High School Possession" respects both positions and should be commended for it, even though I don't believe "meds" and institutionalization are the best route. Sure, they can sedate the problem, but they don't resolve it. Big difference.

I shouldn't close without pointing out how Shanley Caswell (Olivia) and Bailey Anne Borders (Kendall) shine on the feminine front, along with a couple others on the periphery.

The movie runs 1 hour, 28 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles.

GRADE: B-/B.

The film was "High School Possession," a real weirdie Lifetime originally aired on October 25 and ballyhooed as usual as a "world premiere," which turned out to be dementedly silly even though the trailer was quite a "cheat". It's basically the story of a typical angst-ridden youth rebel, Chloe Mitchell (played by Jennifer Stone, whose animate-kewpie doll appearance is actually quite good for the role), whose life has gone off the rails since her mom Bonnie (the still quite hot Iona Skye) divorced her dad. Over the course of the movie, written by Hans Wasserburger and directed by Peter Sullivan (both of them with their tongues no doubt firmly jammed against their cheeks at the sheer silliness of it all), Chloe goes through not only the usual signs of movie-teen alienation — she snaps at people, claims they're out to get her, does drugs and alcohol, self-mutilates, cuts class and listens to loud, obnoxious music (only the device on which your standard-issue alienated movie teen plays their loud, obnoxious music has changed, reflecting how youth's preferred music storage media have changed: in the old days it was an LP player, then a CD player, then a personal computer on which she's downloaded songs, and now it's an iPod-like player she's listening to through ear buds — no doubt the next time Lifetime addresses this theme she'll be blasting out music on her smartphone!) — and a few others of her own, including carrying out three-way conversations with herself (the old schtick of having her "good" and "evil" sides audibly arguing with her and each other over what she should do next) and seeing weird little special-effects projections flying past her. Her best friend, Lauren Brady (Janel Parrish), is an investigative reporter for their high-school paper and is also the girlfriend of its editor, Mase Adkins (Chris Brochu). She decides to join a campus Christian group, "The Chosen," ostensibly to research an article about them but really to find out if Chloe is demonically possessed and, with secular psychiatry apparently unable to help her (her mom, played by Kelly Hu with one of the worst hairdos ever draped across the scalp of a basically attractive woman, has taken her to three psychiatrists, none of them have been able to help solve her problems, and the last one freaks both mom and daughter out when he recommends placing her in a mental hospital), maybe what she really needs is an exorcism.

"High School Possession" is basically a drearily ordinary teen-alienation movie with a 15-minute gimmick action climax uneasily grafted on, competently but decently directed and competently but decently acted as well. The roles of Chloe and Lauren have a lot more potential meat on their bones than Jennifer Stone and Janet Parrish find (though at least Jennifer Stone seems to have done her own voice when she was supposed to be demonically possessed — she didn't rely on an old-time actress to dub them for her the way Linda Blair was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge in "The Exorcist") — though it was nice to see some genuinely attractive young men among the actors playing high-school students, especially Chris Brochu as Mase and Spencer Neville as Brad, as well as the surprisingly sexy William McNamara as Reverend Young. There aren't any "daddy" figures in this movie — unless you count the priest and Chloe's soccer coach (Michael C. Mahon) — because both Chloe's and Lauren's actual fathers aren't in the picture; Chloe's mom is a divorcée and Lauren's is a widow. Overall it's a decently made movie that can't overcome the fundamental silliness of the concept, with competent thriller direction but almost no sense of the Gothic (and what's a possession story without a sense of the Gothic?).

So Lifetime calling? Bad acting and lame plotting twists this film into a quest for salvation or use of outdated psychotropic medication. Pretty bad all the way around unfortunately. The lead actress tries, and her friends do well except they aren't the focus in this story. Too bad; they generally acted better than the afflicted friend and "The Chosen" did.