For Sale by Exorcist
Directed by Melissa LaMartina
Written by Chris LaMartina and Rob Walker
Starring Emily Classen, John Dimes, Helenmary Ball, & Julian Ball
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hours, 21 minutes
Available on digital and VOD March 11

by Samantha McLaren, Staff Writer

They say moving house is one of the most stressful experiences a person can go through, second only to losing a loved one. Director Melissa LaMartina and writers Chris LaMartina and Rob Walker combine the headaches of death and real estate in For Sale by Exorcist, a cheerfully goofy horror mockumentary with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek.

Emily Classen stars as Susan Price, a self-styled realtor-cum-exorcist who has found a lucrative niche flipping haunted houses. To do this, she brings in spiritual experts like Father Doyle (John Dimes) to banish any off-putting entities before showing the properties. If a family decides not to sell after a successful exorcism, Susan can always bill them for the deep clean instead. Everyone wins. Well, everyone living, at least.

It’s a cute premise, but one that might not be substantial enough to carry a feature-length flick. Happily, the filmmakers seem to recognize this, offering a fun taste of a typical workday for Susan before opening the story up to explore the realtor’s quest to find her own forever home, all while coming to the realization that the dead aren’t exactly thrilled with her for evicting them.

There are plenty of opportunities for punchlines along the way, and For Sale by Exorcist has a good eye for them. While some jokes land better than others (and a few are dead on arrival), there’s a level of thoughtfulness and genre-saviness on display here. A quip that feels like a throwaway line resurfaces unexpectedly in the third act. Age-old horror tropes are stopped in their tracks by Susan’s can-do attitude, like her idea to simply paint a bleeding wall red.

It helps that Melissa LaMartina is no stranger to camp: outside of directing, she portrays horror host Aurora Gorealis. For Sale by Exorcist features some deliberately lo-fi effects that wouldn’t feel out of place in one of Gorealis’s “Shocktail Hours,” but the horror-comedy stylings of the film render them more charming than not. The choice to frame the story as a faux documentary also opens the door for more comedic possibilities, with a few well-timed looks to camera à la The Office sure to raise a smile.

Of course, a documentary (fake or otherwise) is ultimately only as compelling as its subject, and Classen’s eye-twitchingly peppy Susan is nicely realized. With her wardrobe full of boxy blazers, Southern accent as thick as molasses, and repertoire of quirky-quaint expressions she can’t wait to whip out, she’s fully believable as the kind of realtor who would have freshly baked cookies on the counter when you arrived, though they might be stacked on a Ouija board. She’s the kind of character that could become grating fast, but the script gives Susan just enough depth to keep her engaging, juxtaposing her chirpy client-facing side with her growing weariness at the nomadic life and her curious aversion to buying a haunted property for herself, despite knowing how to deal with them. Her energy is also balanced well by the various buyers and sellers she encounters, from grumpy elder homeowners the Shermans (Helenmary Ball and Julian Ball) to morose goth couple Kassandra and Lucian (Tatiana Ford and Eric Poch).

Some of these minor players are more interesting than others (something that the “where are they now?” end cards struggle to discern) and the plot surrounding them can be a touch disjointed at times, but at just over 80 minutes, For Sale by Exorcist doesn’t outstay its welcome. As a horror-comedy, the film works harder to tickle your funny bone than it does to raise the hairs on the back of your neck—and that’s okay. It might not make you laugh out loud, and it certainly won’t make you run screaming out the front door, but its cozy premise and good-natured humor make this open house worth the visit.

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