Someone reviewed this film as "The Hangover but with a lot more demons." It's up there on that poster. If The Hangover has become the standard description for any film where someone has a loss of memory and tries to figure out what happened during that time then that sucks. The Hangover was a terrible movie and aside from the point I just touched on is not relatable to this film at all.
Ava's Possessions starts with an exorcism. Once cleansed, to avoid jail time from her month long demon possession, Ava agrees to go to a recovery group for people that were inhabited by a demon. Much like a regular 12-steps recovery, Ava has to seek out the people that she wronged to apologize but also to put the pieces together from her lost time.
This film had some great casting. Wass Stevens (that I know from being Max in Daria) was the demon possession counselor, Deborah Rush (Strangers With Candy) played Ava's mother, and mother fucking Carol Kane (Adam's Family Values / The Princess Bride / Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt / a million other awesome things) as the magick shop owner all killed it in Ava's Possessions. Also, after a ton of possessed girl movies, it was great to see one just treat the possession with a recovery program. It feels like a much more "modern" view instead of bumbling attempts with religious archaism or an obsession with The Exorcist.
Also, I want to give a quick shout out to whomever the person was that had to do the research for the demonic possession spell portion of the movie. It was kind of a hodgepodge of stuff but I recognized the parts that were (if I'm remembering these details right) a Hermetic spell to ask for the favor of a demon. It looked as the sigil on the floor was either Goetic or Enochian. So thumbs fucking up for that.
On the flip side to this praise, the things I liked in this movie were overshadowed by the fact that it felt more like I was watching this for three hours as opposed to an hour and a half. There was always something going on but the pacing just felt off. Which leads me to my other complaint of the third act of this film had its own third act where they pushed all these reveals and explanations to the last little bit. It felt really wrapped up well but instead of letting it ride they threw more and more onto you. You probably aren't going to make a sequel to this. This isn't like when Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm street were made and you needed to add a scene on to make a franchise. Just let it go!
I give Ava's Possessions 2 Regans out of 5:
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