THE CULT OF KIM NEWMAN
The critic and novelist selects the month’s weirdest home-ent releases
Illustration: Neil Edwards. ITV Studios
IN THE 1970s, a horror hit (say, Carrie) would trigger TV-movie imitations (The Initiation Of Sarah). My Best Friend’s Exorcism is set in the 1980s, but feels like a ’70s TV-movie imitation of Jennifer’s Body: it’s daffy, colourful, cast with game up-and-comers, and a lot of fun. Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher becomes even more of an outcast when she tries to convince the school that Amiah Miller — who unwisely a) dropped acid and b) used a ouija board in a derelict house — is possessed. Appropriately named Christian Lemon (Christopher Lowell), a mullet-and-muscles guy who endorses a faith-based exercise regime, volunteers to help with the exorcism, but wimps out so our hero has to invoke the things she really believes in — Boy George, Labyrinth, E.T. — to fight the demon.