The Devil Inside (2012)

Directed by: William Brent Bell | 83 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Ionut Grama, Suzan Crowley, Bonnie Morgan, Brian Johnson, Preston James Hillier, DT Carney, Marvin Duerkholz, Talyan Wright, Les Mahoney, Maude Bonanni, Suzanne Freeman, Marius Florian, Luca Bovelli

The devil will always remain a rewarding subject for (horror) movies. The fascination for this evil demon makes him a logical subject for a film and in the past the devil has already made his appearance in a large number of films, either in live form or by taking possession of a human body. This has resulted in absolute classics, just think of the legendary ‘The Exorcist’ (1973). In recent years, films with this theme have been regularly released, such as the reasonable ‘Devil’ (2010). With ‘The Devil Inside’ we now have our hands on the first and probably not the last devilish film of the year.

‘The Devil Inside’ is straight forward. One evening, when the 9-1-1 emergency center phone rings, we hear Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) on the line, who confesses to having just killed three people. Once they arrive at the scene of the crime, it turns out that this is not a lie: the three victims all met a gruesome end. Maria Rossi is arrested and transferred to a clinic in Rome. Then the film jumps fifteen years. Maria’s daughter, Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), is now an adult and tries to find out what drove her mother to this act. For this she travels to Rome to visit her mother and to get in touch with a few people who can expel the devil (exorcists).

Don’t be fooled by this exciting theme, after seeing ‘The Devil Inside’ the sad conclusion is that there is little exciting about this film. There are far too many flaws for that. First of all, it was decided to visualize the whole by means of a large number of scenes that were filmed with a hand camera (think of the way of filming as we saw earlier in ‘Paranormal Activity’). As a result, you constantly have the feeling that you are watching a documentary and this does not work well. In addition, very little happens, especially the first part of the film mainly consists of many (often superfluous) scenes in which information about the devil and how people can become possessed is given, often by means of interviews with ‘experts’ in this field. It’s a strange choice to tell the story in this way and just like in ‘Paranormal Activity’ it certainly doesn’t contribute to an exciting atmosphere.

Other than that, not much is good about ‘The Devil Inside’. When a few exorcisms finally take place later in the film, they don’t exactly make much of an impression: apart from a few small scares, this has been perfected decades ago in ‘The Exorcist’ and the creaking bones and the many screams do not cause any problems. the intended frightening effect. Combine this with the unconvincing acting and the only thing that can save this film is a good ending.

However: where a good ending can ensure that you can still feel good after a bad film, this is not the case with ‘The Devil Inside’. On the contrary, the ending only adds to the feeling that the whole movie is actually one big anticlimax. After all, the denouement comes so abruptly that you get the idea that the makers no longer knew how to put an end to the story. It’s a shame because in the last part of the film there is just a little bit of momentum and action in the story. The end of ‘The Devil Inside’ is the final death blow for this already devilishly bad film.