Review
The Devil Inside Review
Paranormal Activity and the Blair Witch Project have definitely opened up a rolling snowball of copycats and films that are going to do their best (or in this case, their worst) to cash in on the entire documentary-style of horror filmmaking and The Devil Inside can take the honor of being the worst of entire lineup ever produced. For those who considered Cloverfield to be a bit of a shaky mess then you might want to think again: side-by-side with this film, Cloverfield would shine like an Oscar nominee. There is just so much going wrong with this film.
Initially it might sound pretty interesting as the plot promises a lot of intrigue and open corners for development. The story involves Isabella Rossi, played by Fernanda Andrade, and a documentary filmmaker Michael, portrayed by Ionut Grama, as they travel out of the United States and into the heart of Rome along with two priests to confront Isabella’s mother, Maria, who has been in a psychiatric ward after committing a series of murders and is believed to have been possessed by a devil for the past twenty years. The course of exorcism is not immediately brought up since there is a concern about protocols with the Catholic Church and then all hell breaks loose as the demon passes on from one host to another.
By itself the story is insultingly stupid and immature but intriguing enough when read on paper. The way this plot was handled by the film’s narrative however is just atrocious. The acting is horrible and none of the cast members seem entirely interested in what they were doing. One priest in particular, portrayed by Evan Helmuth, does such an awful job on screen that you could hear people booing his performance out loud. It is very rare when the audience boos a movie in the theaters but this film got more than a couple boos from start to finish. Suzan Crowley does make for an interesting possessed patient but interesting does not automatically equate to being good and this film could have benefited from a better performance to keep the audience invested with the story development. To make matters worse each line of dialogue feels forced and out of placed. A lot of the foul language doesn’t fit together and more often than not you would feel like you are listening to a young teenager trying out new words he learned in school. None of the dialogue or the narrative cuts fit well to propel the story forward and everything just seems to be “there” without any direct purpose for development.
The Devil Inside tries to go with the same visual style that The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity had popularized: found footage filming. Unfortunately though, this approach ruined the experience even further. The camera shakes for no reason during basic conversations and the dizzy feeling is worse than what one would experience with the aforementioned Cloverfield. A documentary style horror film is best suited for a story where showing less is a stronger approach and this would work for a supernatural threat such as the unknown demon in Paranormal Activity but this is an exorcism film. In this narrative it would actually have helped to see something visually intriguing other than a cut and bed-ridden possessed woman convulsing with demonic spasms. The shaky camera doesn’t help either because what visual flair the audience does get to see is obstructed by the inability of the camera to focus on the action and what gruesome image that should have been directed to horrify the audience.
By far the worst aspect of the movie is the ending. The car accident that abruptly cuts the action and drops the entire narrative like heavy weight lead balls is already enough to get anybody angry but they didn’t stop there. Instead the movie flashes an advertisement to direct the audience to visit a website in order for them to get the rest of the story on what had happened after the police found the footage in the camera. This is outright insulting and to think that the filmmakers made people pay to see an incomplete movie and then advise them to visit an outside source to get the rest of the story which they should have included in the final cut. If the movie isn’t finished or if you can’t get it done within a budget, then don’t release a half-finished product but The Devil Inside somehow managed to do just that. This movie review grants The Devil Inside one star out five.
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