The Devil Inside (2012)

In 1989, emergency responders received a 9-1-1 call from Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) confessing that she had brutally killed three people. 20 years later, her daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) seeks to understand the truth about what happened that night. She travels to the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Italy where her mother has been locked away to determine if her mother is mentally ill or demonically possessed. When she recruits two young exorcists (Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth) to cure her mom using unconventional methods combining both science and religion, they come face-to-face with pure evil in the form of four powerful demons possessing Maria. Many have been possessed by one; only one has been possessed by many.

This found footage appeal has officially overstayed its welcome; specifically in the horror genre. It has reached a point to where the entire plot and character paths can be mapped out and predicted almost to a tee in where and how the film will come to a conclusion. As a matter of fact, every one of these films don’t even give you a conclusion; they just abruptly end the film in a lazy attempt to maintain its “real” events bullshit. That’s a giant copout that only really benefits the studio behind the film, where they can just say the answers will come in the inevitable sequel that goes more into the background of the “demonic” possession. The Devil Inside does all of that, providing the spitting image of how repetitive found footage films have become.

If you’ve seen the films trailer, then you’ll have seen just about any amounts of terror the film has to show. Clocking in at just 87 minutes, the film wastes way too much time explaining information to you about the characters motives and thoughts. I’d say it takes them almost 45 minutes to even show the possessed mother, Maria Rossi. That’s the other aspect where the film cheated the audience. In the trailer, the mother is the focus; she gets the most screen time, is given the best moments, and appears to be the star, but she seems to barely be in the film.  Nothing is shown what might’ve caused her to become possessed, what happened to her during her hospital stay, and what became of her. The film pulled a complete bait and switch. If the goal was to bore the shit out of you then mission accomplished.

One would think with the overwhelming negative reviews that this could wind up putting a dent in the stoppage of these films, but they came too late. Every stupid schmuck decided to go check it out that opening Friday and it will probably be one of the most profitable films based off just this one weekend where it made 34x its budget. With its success, the genre will surely be back stronger than before with even more copycats, but hopefully the audience learns to not be so foolish. This is the exact type of film that should have come and gone without a spec of interest. It is already a candidate for one of the worst films of 2012 and it’s the only release so far. That’s not the type of year I expect 2012 to be, but what can you honestly expect from a January release, where only generally terrible films come out.

Overall Score: 2/10