You know what’s the best part of setting a horror film in a morgue? Automatic dead body storage and disposal. Très convenient, no? Dudes die, well, hey, there’s the slab, there’s the incinerator. Easy peas-y circumstantial-evidence squeeze-y.
Three months ago, Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson) died during a routine exorcism. Actually, I have no idea if it were routine; I only know exorcism through horror films and no two are quite the same. So, yeah, Hannah died, but you know, you can’t keep a good corpse down for long. Apparently, she lived to die another day … today in fact, coinciding with Megan’s first solo on morgue duty at Boston General.
I suppose you need some background – Megan (Shay Mitchell) was a cop who froze up on the job, allowing her partner to get shot. Then she developed a severe substance abuse addiction that drove away her live-in boyfriend. Now that her backstory is nice and overloaded, we can surely understand why she desires alone time on the graveyard shift in, essentially, a graveyard. I’m puzzled at this point, however. Is the hospital morgue really that off limits? It seems so accessible in every other film I’ve seen. Nevermind.
Ok, so there are actually some good horror elements here: noob with PTSD fighting addictive behaviors, working alone, late at night, creepy venue, lights automatically turn themselves off from lack of use, or more importantly, turn themselves on when something is moving. For a film that sucks, this one had a lot more going for it than many horror films. And in the wee hours, dudes bring in the corpse of Hannah Grace and shit goes down.
First, Megan can’t seem to take clear prints or pictures, which is probably a good thing as Hannah has been beaten with several ugly sticks, mangled with ugly crowbars, skewered with ugly knives, and burned with ugly fire. Just note that the girl starts off looking pretty gnarly. I say “starts” cuz Hannah slowly repairs herself while taking other lives, like in The Mummy.
When Megan sticks Hannah in the drawer, the darn door just keeps opening up. Oh, I get it. For viewers over the age of fifty, Hannah Grace is clearly doing the hilarious Señor Wences “close the door” routine. Hah! That’s a classic. Ah, corpse of Hannah, what a card.
Eventually, Hannah finds ambulatory means. Well, sorta. She kinda crawls around instead of doing a bipedal thing. I kept waiting for Megan to open the slab door and say, “Who wants walkies! That’s right, walkies! Who’s a good corpse? Who’s a good corpse?” Yeah, I know the “stated” reason for making the corpse crawl is the added creep factor, but really it amounts to never getting a full frontal look at a young naked female. We all know how sensitive homicidal-animated-corpse watching audiences can be to nudity.
The Possession of Hannah Grace ain’t a good film. You know that. I know that. Heck, even Hannah knows that. At some point, the corpse has to be asking itself why it keeps toying with Megan when it happily kills everybody else it sees? Yet, for a bad film there were pieces of decent horror in the mix. The impression, however of a dead body in need of a leash and a dog park is not the one that’s gonna keep you up at night.
♪ I’ve never seen you looking so mangled as you did tonight
I’ve never seen you like a wight
I’ve never seen so many priests want to run you through with a lance
They’re looking for a little penance, and a sideways glance
And I’ve never seen nothing you’re wearing
Or the insect-like prowl that hides your thighs
Hey I’m not blind
The lady is dead
And mooning at me
Cheek to cheek
There’s no life here, unless you count me
That’s how I want to be
But I hardly know how to commit corpse-icide
I’ll never forget the way you rose tonight♫
Rated R, 86 Minutes
Director: Diederik Van Rooijen
Writer: Brian Sieve
Genre: “Sir. Please help. My date won’t die.”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Hannah Grace
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The society opposed to unrealistic expectations of the dead
♪ Parody Inspired by “The Lady in Red”
