The Grady Hendrix adaptation My Best Friend’s Exorcism features a creepy ending, but the finale does not explain all the horror-comedy movie's many mysteries. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is adapted from the novel of the same name by horror author Grady Hendrix. The story of best friends Gretchen and Abby, My Best Friend’s Exorcism follows Abby’s attempts to exorcise her friend when she fears that Gretchen has been possessed by a demon and the adult authorities in their lives prove less than useless at dealing with this issue.
The Amazon Prime Video horror movie is a throwback to 80s horror movies, but My Best Friend’s Exorcism is far from a cliche-filled Friday the 13th-esque slasher movie. Almost no one dies in the horror-comedy, although Gretchen’s demonic possession does lead her to mete out some brutal mistreatment on her friends. For the most part, My Best Friend’s Exorcism is largely faithful to Hendrix’s novel, although the lighter movie adaptation does eschew some of the book’s more brutal violence.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending also changes things up from the book somewhat, with the movie adaptation featuring a physical fight against the demon that isn’t included in the novel. After Gretchen spends weeks gradually escalating a campaign of bullying against Abby, Abby starts to suspect that her former friend is possessed by a demon. Gretchen’s deteriorating psychical health seems to imply that Abby is right and, with no one else to turn to, Abby convinces a youth pastor, Christian (played by How I Met Your Father hero Chris Lowell) to help her exorcise Gretchen. However, when the duo starts the process things don’t go as planned, and Christian soon bails on Abby when the demon inside Gretchen, Andras, takes the form of his dead mother and terrifies him. This leaves Abby to complete the exorcism and, being Jewish, Abby understandably abandons the traditionally Catholic religious procedure in favor of relying on the power of friendship. This leads to the dramatic revelations featured in the My Best Friend's Exorcism ending, many of which differ drastically from the source material – including the main antagonist's reveal. Here is everything about My Best Friend's Exorcism's ending explained.
What Happens In My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s Ending
After Christian abandons the pair, Gretchen escapes her bonds and flees to the same haunted house near the lake where she first encountered Andras. Abby follows, chanting a list of the things that made her and Gretchen friends in the hopes that this will expel the demon. It works, as Gretchen ends up vomiting out Andras, a small skeletal demon. Like another 80s horror legend, the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise's Freddy Krueger, Andras is no longer unstoppable once he is in the real world. The quick-thinking Abby burns him alive, ridding the duo of My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s demonic villain. The final scene of My Best Friend’s Exorcism then cuts to Gretchen and her family moving out of town, but not before reassuring viewers that the pair remained friends to this day.
How My Best Friend’s Exorcism's Ending Changes The Book’s Ending
In the novel version of My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Andras is never seen outside of Gretchen’s body. There is a brief hallucinatory interlude wherein Abby sees the demon in what looks like Hell just before she manages to successfully exorcise Andras from Gretchen’s body. However, the pair also don’t return to the house where Gretchen was possessed in the novel, with the movie adaptation of My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending adding this face-off against the demon and changing the setting make the finale more dramatic. Like The Shining’s movie adaptation, My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending changes the nature of the villain by bringing it to life onscreen, since there is no lingering ambiguity over whether Gretchen was possessed. A reader of the Hendrix novel could conceivably think that Gretchen and Abby were both delusional and paranoid, but My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s movie adaptation makes it clear that the demon was not only real but even had a psychical, corporeal form outside of Gretchen's body.
What Happened To Margaret and Glee?
Early on in My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Gretchen and Abby spend most of their time with their closest friends Margaret and Glee. However, Gretchen drives a wedge between the friends as she tricks Margaret into imbibing a tapeworm and almost kills Glee by feeding her a nut-laced brownie and hiding her Epipen. While neither of the girls forgives Gretchen (understandably, since they presumably aren't aware she was possessed by a demon at the time), unlike some famous horror movie heroines, they do both escape the story with their lives. My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending explains that Glee now works with people who suffer from allergies and campaigned to make pretzels a standard in-flight snack instead of peanuts, while Margaret works with sufferers of eating disorders—as well as writing a series of successful books about killer worms.
What Happened To Christian?
In My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending, Christian abandons Gretchen and Abby despite his initial enthusiasm for the titular event. Once the exorcism goes south, it is not long before Christian leaves (a scene that the movie plays for dark laughs and My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s original novel iteration takes more seriously). My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending explains that Christian was kicked out of his family’s religious performance group as a result, but went on to run a successful frozen yogurt business. Unlike other fictional and real exorcists, Christian turns out to be too afraid of Andras to help Gretchen in her hour of need. However, given that Andrew turned into his dead mother to scare him out of exorcising the demon, Christian’s reaction isn’t portrayed as being completely surprising or unexpected. If anything, My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending seems to imply that the character was never really meant for the church and his family simply pressured him into this destiny, much like Gretchen and Abby’s families don’t approve of their friendship.
What Does My Best Friend’s Exorcism Ending Really Mean
My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending shows the same thematic point as the novel despite the differences between the two. In both versions of the story, Gretchen is possessed by a demon that has its basis in Christian scripture, but Christian’s Conjuring-style heroic exorcist character proves completely incapable of taking down the monster. Instead, it is the close friendship between Gretchen and Abby that allows both girls to survive the story since their relationship is stronger than Andras’ evil. Thus, My Best Friend’s Exorcism’s ending suggests that platonic bonds can be as strong as familial or romantic love and that people can find as much strength in friendship as they do in faith.