It wasn’t long ago that I tweeted something about the cover art of films being so important. After all, first impressions are a killer. Scrolling past Grace: The Possession day after day on the Google Play Store had me rolling my eyes at the fact that it continued to move up in rank. It just looked so….bad. It was yet ANOTHER movie about possession, and at first glance, seemed to be a found footage film. Shocker, I know.

Shame on me for literally judging a book (or movie) by its cover.

We follow a girl named Grace as she is becoming acclimated to college life. Apparently this is the first time she has been away from her uber religious grandmother in …well, ever. We see the film through her eyes (as in the MANIAC remake) as she meets her stereotypical slutty roommate and gets her first crush. This is not found footage. Everything remains quite cinematic, and this “point of view” style really helped me connect with Grace. I honestly felt pretty bad for her. Casting was spot on. The entire first quarter of the film was much different than I expected and superseded all expectations I had set for myself. It was good.

Then things change. Its still good, but after Grace is pulled out of college we enter familiar possession movie territory. Luckily, the film style and performance by Grace keep things entertaining. All of the exciting college parties are replaced with drab churches and houses. I’m sure this was intentional to cause an overall feeling of dread, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take some of the wind out of the sails for me.

By the time its all said and done, we get a rather satisfying ending – although the last few minutes that it takes to get there are a bit strange. Tough it out though. Not everything is tied in a pretty bow for us, so that does mean there are some loose ends, but nothing that took away from the good time I had watching the film.