A lot of fun.

A Disappointing Continuation

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An artist creates a DVD cover to look like "The Craft" with a catchy title. Unfortunately they attached a made for TV film to it. The original Lifetime title was "High School Possession." Chloe (Jennifer Stone) unconvincing shows us she was issues and hears voices. She has the token hot Asian friend (Janel Parrish) in a Hollywood High School with only hot chicks. Is Chloe possessed or just menatlly ill? Will the town exorcist help? (Apparently demonic possession is an issue even in a California paradise.)The acting wasn't there. The voices in Chloe's head is the most entertaining dialogue in the film. The ending has a twist, which doesn't create the needed climax.Guide: No swearing or nudity. Poorly implied sex. Great DVD cover.Note to self: Do not use cuticle scissors for suicide.

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?).

While "High School Possession" may not be the horror film that the title suggests, it's still a very well-made thriller with some strong performances.Jennifer Stone plays a troubled girl dealing with what seems to be paranoid schizophrenia. While her mother (Ione Skye) tries everything to avoid having her committed, her best friend, played by Janel Parrish, decides to confront a church youth group about conducting an exorcism. It's a Lifetime movie so naturally, things go wrong.The story has a lot of twists and turns, and I don't want to ruin anything... but let's just say it's not a clear-cut case of demonic possession. Nor is anyone what they appear. In the beginning we have our high school movie stereotypes: the bitchy mean girl, the sidekick, and the poor picked-on victim. By the end of the movie, the bitchy mean girl has become the victim, the sidekick is the protagonist, and the victim is the villain. I also thought it was great that Janel Parrish and Jennifer Stone are playing opposite characters than what we're used to... Janel is the good girl for once while Jennifer gets to kick some butt. Also, the exorcism scene is really intense! I don't know much about schizophrenia, but Jennifer does a really good job going from popular soccer star to being seriously ill. The movie shows you what it's like to hear voices and it's really not pleasant.I wish it could have been scarier... which is why I can't give it a perfect rating, but it's definitely creepy and unpredictable.