So, while I love a wide variety of horror content across all sub-genres and media, one kind of story tends to rub me the wrong way: the possession-exorcism (though just last week, I did write about an interesting take on the subject). Sure – they can be really creepy, there are a couple of classic examples that are really great, well made movies, and it is a very, very popular theme, but it almost always turns me off. They often leave an aftertaste of proselytization, seemingly advertisements for the Church, Catholic or otherwise (in recent years, the Warrens led Conjuring films have been notably unpleasant examples, though they primarily present as hauntings).
Now, there are other kinds of films dealing with demonic or diabolical elements or religious imagery that don’t do this. I think it is because, while they may contain religious elements, they are not about (or even particularly in support of) religion the way an exorcism film can be. Van Helsing holding up a cross to ward off a bride of Dracula I can accept as a simple trope of Vampire fiction without feeling like it’s supposed to teach me to let Christ into my heart. Films can directly feature the Devil as an antagonist, but somehow Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate, reveling in his bombast, or Black Philip in The VVitch asking if Tomasin wouldst like to live deliciously, don’t make me feel uncomfortable, as if I’d made the mistake of inviting in two polite, well-dressed chaps who want to give me the good news. I mean, sure, I generally want horror to make me uncomfortable – but not that way.
So what is it about this story? Why does it have this particular effect on me? On one level, a possession film is so often about someone in denial about the “truth” – that radical evil is real and that we are helpless against it without faith, specifically faith in “the Lord.” The story is all about this horrific realization on the part of a protagonist, whether the mother of the demoniac in question or a priest who has lost his faith and must regain it to prevail (both from the Exorcist), who only after accepting this knowledge has a chance of casting out the evil presence. Scientific methods may be used to try to diagnose the problem, but they will all fail until the only remaining solution is that of the holy man with a cross. And oddly enough, I feel the filmmakers often may not even intend such a message or experience – they are just trying to tell a scary story and are thus leaning on certain generic conventions, but in so doing, the resultant film can have the vibe of a church basement Halloween Hell House – where they are having great fun creating horrible things (because that is, of course, fun), but it is all in service of scaring the visiting kids away from sin.
Maybe I’m overstating it, but it’s the feeling I get personally.
So if I’m so put off by possession narratives, why am I even writing about them? Well, because I have an exception here – a book that takes the story in a really different direction and delivers a totally distinctive tone. And sometimes, when you find a really good book, you just want to go door to door and tell people about it.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2016) by Grady Hendrix
First, I have to say – it is very hard to impossible to really get into what I think is so great about this novel without explicitly discussing the ending, and I feel it features a turn that really can be spoiled. I’ll give a fresh warning before I get to that part and if you think you might like to read the book, do yourself a favor and go pick it up before finishing this text. It’s a really quick read – the first time I did so, I tore through it in one sitting on a flight from Warsaw to NYC, only pausing for meal and bathroom breaks.
Ok, so this is the story of Abby, whose best friend, Gretchen, gets possessed by a demon, which in turn, must be exorcised. By the end it is. Hooray. Simple, right? But where it is special is in the relationships between the girls.
We start when they first become friends on Abby’s tenth birthday party: an E.T. themed event at the local roller rink (spanning the years 1982-1988, 80s pop culture looms large in this story, very much the air that these friends breath, the idiom they speak – sometimes in shouting misheard Phil Collins lyrics, sometimes in playing Madonna dress up and getting in trouble with one religious mother who does not approve of the material girl, or in this case, just needing E.T. everything). Gretchen, the new girl in class, is the only one to show up, rather than going to a much fancier party being thrown by another kid she doesn’t know; somehow kismet strikes and they really click, thus starting a lifelong friendship. The book takes its time with this utterly non-scary but equally foundational episode, and then carries on taking its time with the next 5 years of the girls’ lives and friendship. I was surprised on re-reading it to find that this only makes up about 50 pages of the book – it had felt like so much more; really getting the connection between them, from running jokes to secrets shared, to embarrassing details of parents’ lives uncovered.
Then, when they’re 16, Gretchen gets possessed and everything goes wrong. The horror elements come quick and hard in this middle stretch: ominous, shadowy figures in the woods, owls bloodily slamming into windows, the feeling of a hand on the neck when no one’s there, creepy voices on the phone at night, beloved pets murdered, white fleshy worm things vomited out. Hendrix pulls no punches in delivering revulsion and shock. But he manages this while at the same time maintaining a somewhat blackly comic tone (I’ve read comparisons to Heathers). But the worst thing is in no way supernatural, but rather just the simple horror of your closest friend changing, betraying your secrets, becoming cruel, becoming someone you can’t trust, someone who hurts people, who is downright evil, and whom you somehow still love. Friendship and love necessarily entail vulnerability, and Abby has no walls to guard her from Gretchen’s malice. She doesn’t need much convincing to believe her friend is possessed by a demon.
So she finds herself an exorcist and now’s a good time to go pick up the book if you think you might like to read it. I’ll wait.
…
Ok, so here is where Hendrix’s book really distinguishes itself from the exorcism pack (and I’ll describe it even though you hopefully just finished reading it). Abby finds an exorcist, Brother Lemon – an earnestly absurd Christian weightlifter with whom she kidnaps, in order to save, her friend. In the process of the exorcism, the demonic presence reveals itself and we get all the typical supernatural spookiness and fluids. Now, Lemon knows all the steps but has never done this before and comes close to killing Gretchen before Abby stops him. He leaves in disgrace and Abby, alone with her friend and something else, has to finish the job.
She starts by following his playbook, reciting prayers and such. It’s kind of working, but she doesn’t believe these words. They are empty symbols for her, and finally, unable to abandon her friend, determined to go down with her if she has to, she finds the words that are true: the misremembered lyrics of a Go-Gos song that played at her 10th birthday party, a litany of singers or actors or shows or jokes or games they have watched or told or played together. The power of Christ might not compel this demon to leave, but maybe the power of Phil Collins can. The power of all the little references and memories, things they have loved and laughed over, secrets they have entrusted one another with. These are authentic things. Absurd and silly and seemingly inconsequential, and real. It is an amazing, exciting, moving sequence.
And it manages to make this the rare exorcism that works for me by basing it on something I can actually believe in. Faith may be necessary for the procedure, but faith need not be religious. Abby acts out of faith, not only in her friend, but in the very concept of Friendship, actualizing not only the love between them, but Love, itself: making out of the frivolous detritus of childhood, icons of power. This was the second time I read it and while the middle section of horrible events lost some effect without the element of surprise, the climax landed just as hard as it had the first time, on a plane, trying to both stifle guffaws and ugly crying – cause that’s kind of embarrassing sitting next to a stranger.
Grady Hendrix has been a really enjoyable discovery for me in the last few years. This was the first book of his that I’d read, but since then I’ve worked through the rest of his available output (some are sadly out of print) – covering a range of horror topics, but all with a kind of light touch – not necessarily comedy, but something humanistic and, for lack of a better word, fun. Whether exploring a haunted Ikea in Horrorstör, a Faustian heavy metal parable in We Sold Our Souls, following middle aged housewives hunting the undead in The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, or most recently, delving into the life changing trauma of being a survivor in The Final Girl Support Group, he offers interesting and entertaining spins on well-worn ideas, that come alive in character without sacrificing the horror. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is no exception.