{2jtab: Movie Review}
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The “found footage” phenomenon hits an all-time low with this budget-friendly piece of horror schlock. Mixing hand-held footage with scratchy camcorder video, The Devil Inside uses the medium of the stylized mockumentary well, but doesn’t have an interesting enough story to tell and subverts itself with an actual zero ending. Yep, at the climax of the narrative the film abruptly ends with only a title card inviting audiences to visit a website for more information.
Wow. Writer/director William Brent Bell (Stay Alive) is either the dumbest working person in Hollywood or he has the biggest pair of brass balls ever to be shined by studio executives. Either way, without a legitimate ending to its madness, The Devil Inside will only disappoint you.
Opening with “authentic” crime scene footage, The Devil Inside treats its audience with a brutal look at what went down on October 30, 1989, when Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) committed a triple murder during an exorcism. Wishing to silence the panic, the Catholic Church whisks Rossi away to a psychiatric hospital in Rome. Twenty years later, her daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) attempts to find out what happened to her mother through making an exorcism-themed documentary that examines whether possesion is real or just mental illness.
She visits a school in Rome and mingles with students Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth) who, operating outside of the Church’s authority, take her to one of their exorcisms. Rosalita (Bonnie Morgan) is first and, mid-session, she acknowledges Isabella on a first name basis without ever having been introduced to her and attacks the crew.
Thus, the intrigue behind Isabella’s family history with possession kicks into high gear and, soon enough, she is reunited with her mother. It’s disturbing and mysterious and suddenly ended with a scream to bring down the heavens. With camera and audio equipment, the crew is able to determine that four different demons are inhabiting Maria and that, somehow, the demons are able to hop from person to person.
Enter the nuttiness that derails what could have been a solid entry into this sub-genre of horror. People get pretzelized and eye-flinching paranoia gets kicked into a pressurized overdrive that ends with a literal and figurative crash.
Visit a website for more information.
With only a minimum amount of authentic scares (all of which you’ve seen in the previews), it’s the demon-hopping silliness the audience should be afraid of. After thirty minutes, the promise of horror turns into a premise for comedy: evil is as contagious as the common cold. Suddenly, everything is derailed by a line of thought that can't unbox itself from its own corner. It’s a cheapshot of your standard sweatshop product. No quality whatsoever. No forethough, either. All reaction that builds with suspicion and on-camera confessions.
A movie with no ending is a movie with no point.
{2jtab: Film Details}
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violent content and grisly images, and for language including some sexual references.
Runtime: 83 mins.
Director: William Brent Bell
Writer: William Brent Bell; Matthew Peterman
Cast: Fernanda Andrade; Simon Quarterman; Evan Helmuth; Suzan Crowley; Bonnie Morgan
Genre: Horror
Tagline: No soul is safe
Memorable Movie Quote: "Three... Three people."
Distributor: Insurge Pictures
Official Site:
Release Date: January 6, 2012
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: September 11, 2012
Synopsis: In Italy, a woman becomes involved in a series of unauthorized exorcisms during her mission to discover what happened to her mother, who allegedly murdered three people during her own exorcism.
{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}
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Blu-ray Details:
Available on Blu-ray - September 11, 2012
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1; Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Discs: 25GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD); UV digital copy
Region Encoding: A
Supplements:
Commentary:
- None
Special Features:
None
{2jtab: Trailer}
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