The Possession of Hannah Grace wasn't screened for critics, and that usually means that the studio releasing the film knows it has a real poo-poo stinker on its hands and wants to throw it out into the theaters to do some “sucker” business before the critics catch up and savage it. Well, Hannah Grace isn't really that bad. In fact, it is creepy, has some suspense, and is a watchable throwback to '80s horror films (1984's Sole Survivor is one that comes to mind).
Fresh out of rehab, former cop Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell of TV's Pretty Little Liars) takes the graveyard shift job at the city morgue. Early in the night, the partially burned and mutilated corpse of a young woman comes in. Her name is Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson), and she died in an exorcism gone wrong. To paraphrase The Princess Bride's Miracle Max, she's “only mostly dead,” because the demon still inhabits Hannah's body. Needless to say, weird things start happening on Megan's shift, like the corpse seemingly getting up and walking around. Oh, and co-workers start getting brutally murdered.
The Possession of Hannah Grace is completely formulaic and the scares are mild, but the performances are solid and those darkened corridors are a little unnerving. It's not nearly as good a film as the ultra-unsettling and similarly titled The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016), but, again in the words of Miracle Max, “I've seen worse.”
