Rated
R (Disturbing Violent Content and Grisly Images, and for Language including
some Sexual References)
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 23 Minutes
Cast-
Fernanda
Andrade-Isabella Rossi
Suzan
Crowley-Maria Rossi
Simon
Quarterman-Father Ben Rawlings
Evan
Helmuth-Father David Keane
Ionut
Grama-Michael Schaefer
Bonnie
Morgan-Rosalita
Brian
Johnson-Lieutenant Dreyfus
Claudiu
Istodor-Doctor Antonio Costa
Directed
by William Brent Bell
 |
| Sometimes, even the possessed need to let their hair down. |
Teasers
and trailers are central to a film’s advertising, whetting the audience’s
appetite by giving them a little taste of what’s to come but they often prove
to be misleading and do not reflect the final product. I must admit that the
initial previews for horror flick “The Devil Inside,” part of the
‘found-footage’ subgenre, gave me the creeps but calling the actual film a
disappointment is a massive
understatement. After acquiring the domestic rights for a mere $350,000,
Paramount Pictures released “Paranormal Activity” during the fall of 2009 to
critical and commercial success, earning an impressive $193 million worldwide
against a measly $15,000 production budget and spawning a new annual horror
franchise. The second and third entries received mixed reviews but continued to
do big business at the box office, with a fourth installment set to arrive this
October. Hoping to have lightning strike twice, Paramount founded Insurge
Pictures in March 2010, an independent distributor of ‘micro-budget’ films.
Their first release was the aforementioned “The Devil Inside,” filmed on a
production budget of approximately $1 million but went on to earn one hundred times this amount worldwide.
This is not a mark of quality however, as “The Devil Inside” is made with
little enthusiasm, offering leftovers of similarly-themed films but these
issues pale in comparison to its abrupt ending that will leave the audience
feeling infuriated.
On October 30, 1989,
a woman named Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) living in Hartford, Connecticut
murders three members of the local clergy (two priests and a nun) during an
exorcism performed on her. Maria is promptly arrested at the scene of the crime
and is found not guilty due to insanity during her trial. She is sent to a
state mental hospital but is transferred a few months later to Centrino in
Rome, Italy under the care of the Vatican. Twenty years later in 2009, Maria’s
now-grown daughter Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) fears that she will suffer
the same malady like her mother and decides to travel to Rome to learn more
about exorcism, documenting her experiences with filmmaker Michael Schaffer (Ionut
Grama). While attending a lecture on exorcisms at the Apostolic Academy of Rome,
Isabella meets two priests, Fathers Ben Rawlings (Simon Quarterman) and David
Keane (Evan Helmuth), who become interested in her case. The priests perform
exorcisms without express authorization from the Roman Catholic Church and feel
that the institution is too bogged down by bureaucracy to help those in need.
With the help of the priests, Isabella confronts her mother and comes
face-to-face with true evil.
Edited in a faux-documentary style, “The Devil
Inside” is a thoroughly dull affair made with little energy or enthusiasm from
director William Brent Bell. Part of the ‘found-footage’ horror subgenre, the
success of these types of films lies in their ability to trick the audience
into believing that what is happening on-screen is real but it cannot even meet
this modest requirement because its presentation lacks consistency, switching
from hand-held camerawork to static security footage with little rhyme or
reason. The initial previews claimed that the film was ‘inspired by true
events’ but this is nothing but false advertising. Written by Bell and Matthew
Peterman, the story spends an unusual amount of time developing its characters
and various subplots such as the priests’ frustration with the internal
politics of the Church but there’s absolutely no payoff and the dialogue fails
to inspire much interest or make you even care about what is happening. Certain
scenes also make no sense in the context of the film such as when Isabella
begins talking about [spoiler] Michael’s mother sleeping with his father’s best
friend [end spoiler]. Some of the ideas about severe mental illness and demonic
possession and how one can be mistaken for the other are intriguing but the film never explores them in a satisfactory
manner. Usually films of this type offer some cheap thrills at the bare minimum
but all of the set-pieces are devoid of scares and excitement despite the
‘shocking’ way in which they are presented. The problem is that these scenes
offer up nothing new that audiences haven’t seen before. At one point the two
priests bring Isabella along to witness a real exorcism and as expected there
are some weird contortionist maneuvers but the taunts being yelled out end up sounding
laughable as if it was written by a thirteen-year-old boy testing out all the
profanities he just learned. The worst thing about “The Devil Inside” is its
ending, or absolute lack thereof. The film just abruptly stops while offering
absolutely no closure or answers to
the events that took place and the final slap in the face comes in a title card
telling audiences to ‘learn more’ by logging onto some promotional website.
What really bothers me is that there are people posting inane comments asking
if the film is real. How dense can you be?! This is just lazy on the writer’s
part, as if they ran out of ideas and choose to stop filming, which is ironic
considering that there are no new
ideas in the first place.
The acting is often flat and lifeless with the
exception of Suzan Crowley as the demonic-possessed Maria Rossi. Crowley seems
to be the only one who actually puts in an effort, pulling off a convincing
performance as her eyes start bugging out and turning several darker shades of
red. She is just too good and belongs
in a better film. Fernanda Andrade ends up reciting all her lines in monotone
while Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth are little more than mouth-pieces in
which dull exposition is delivered. “The Devil Inside” was released on Blu-Ray
as a Best Buy exclusive back in early May 2012 and while the video quality isn’t
exactly demo material, this high definition transfer is pristine with the
grainy, low-lit scenes remaining true to the source material. Audio quality can
feel too polished at times but all
the loud thumping and screaming is handled convincingly, complete with the
requisite booms and hisses that are found in raw, home video footage. This
Blu-Ray is a bare-bones release with no special features besides an UltraViolet
cloud streaming digital copy of the film. The retail price is $24.99, which
honestly feels likes outright robbery.
Released on January 6, 2012, “The Devil
Inside” was the first major release of 2012 and earned a surprising $34 million during opening weekend
thanks to Paramount’s effective marketing campaign. However, the film was not
screened critics and it subsequently received negative reviews with an
incredibly low 7% on Rotten Tomatoes,
writing it off as ‘a cheap, choppy unscary mess [and] featuring one of the
worst endings in recent memory.’ Although it faced a 76% drop in its second
weekend, the film turned a profit with $101 million worldwide and all but
assuring that more of its ilk will be released to milk audiences’ hard-earned
money. I leave you with this final sentence from R. Kurt Osenlund’s review for Slant magazine: ‘It's basically one big
offensive gesture, which, really, is what you should expect from a movie whose
poster image mirrors the universal symbol for cunnilingus.’
Final
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
Isabella
Rossi: Let my mother go.
Maria
Rossi: You'll burn.
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