The Possession of Hannah Grace

I got this movie recommended because it was supposedly pretty scary. Well. It started out alright. I love the set / location. The acting is good, and the script is decent.. but how do you manage to make a horror movie so predictable and sadly ruin the scaryness if it.

The main letdowns are here are the use of terrible CGI and sound design. I've never heard a demon that's this bland and boring. Even her kills are boring and repetitive. The main thing though, this movie use CGI instead of practical and it didn't even need CGI... That's the worst part. It's obvious, it's ugly and it shouldn't be, especially in 2018.

So yeah.. it's a slow burn horror, with some decent jumps, good acting and a great location, but that's it for me.

4/10.

I'm a horror movie buff and I don't scare easy, but at this movie I actually screamed! Over the years I've learned to anticipate the jump scares and what not so the fact that his movie could still catch me off guard says a lot. The plot, the acting, the atmosphere, etc. were all also quite good. Good job well done; so go see it in theaters as it's not gonna be as good watching at home.

If we're being honest, Screen Gems isn't known for churning out the world's best horror movies. Most of them feel undercooked to the point of tedium or, even worse, neutered to hell and back. The Possession of Hannah Grace falls somewhere in the middle. It's neither a total disaster nor a rare triumph for the studio a la The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Hannah Grace keeps things nicely subtle for the first half hour of its run time with creaking doors, motion-sensored lights lights going on and off, and strange bumps in the night. It loses something when it starts turning into an Asian ghost story-inspired contortionist fest.

Shay Mitchell is a likable enough heroine even though her backstory seems shoehorned in and a bit awkward. The film is never truly scary, but it speeds along at a nice enough clip so that you don't feel like you're wasting too much of your time.

It could be better, but knowing Screen Gems, it could have been a lot worse. The R rating seems almost like an afterthought since none of the deaths in the film are what one would call gory besides a grisly opening sequence and, although, the titular character spends most of her screen time completely nude, she's usually bathed in shadows to keep from seeing any real nudity.

After spending a period in rehab, the former police officer Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell) accepts the job offered by her friend Lisa Roberts (Stana Katic) to work in the graveyard shift in a hospital morgue. Megan is recovering from a stress caused by a situation where her partner died. Megan receives the corpse of a young woman named Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson) and later a man tries to burn the body in the incinerator but Megan and the security team hold and arrest the man. Soon Megan has the weird sensation that Hannah Grace is recovering from her injuries but her friend Lisa believes she is still using drugs and does not believe in her. But soon she realizes that there is something evil in the cadaver.

"The Possession of Hannah Grace" is an unoriginal but not bad horror film. The screenplay could have been better not showing the exorcism of Hannah Grace in the beginning, but maybe in flashback to keep the mystery. But the performances are great and the creepy atmosphere keeps the tension. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Cadáver" ("Cadaver")

This film should have been garbage, it is a new take on an old concept but the trailers weren't spectacular and seemed like a film that belongs in the horror wasteland of January. However, to be entirely honest it really isn't that bad and it's fair to say that for the most part it exceeded my low expectations. The central performance was quite good and most of the first and second act was pretty tense. The setting is solid and the director clearly was genuinely trying. That being said, the film does become extremely predictable, and not all the scares land. The third act explodes into cliche, and there are perhaps too many plot holes for me to just ignore. Overall, The Possession of Hannah Grace is better than the trailers suggest, it's a well acted enjoyable ride and does have some good scares, but the frequent jump scares, predictable flow of events and plot holes prevent this film from being anything memorable.