The Devil Inside is a found footage/fake documentary film about Isabella, our poor excuse for a protagonist, a woman who travels to the Vatican to learn more about the exorcism school for personal reasons bringing a filmmaker with her to document the experience. She befriends a couple of unauthorized exorcists who decide to help her, but things do not go as hoped, which is perfect because why should the viewers be the only ones miserable in this outing.
I actually love found footage/fake documentary films. I grade them on a curve. I am generous with my praise and reticent with my criticism because the very nature of the genre suggests that the filmmakers lack enough resources to make a traditional feature film so if I complain that The Devil Inside is a dreadful movie, it is probably worse than I think. It is everything that I hate about demon possession movies and exhibits the worst traits of the found footage genre.
The Devil Inside’s narrative structure is initially promising with police recordings of the crime scene and archival news footage, but when it segues to the meat of the movie, the documentary being shot, the cutting from surveillance footage to the choppy handheld camera footage does nothing to build tension. I did not need a pupil cam, and judging on how poorly executed the exorcisms were, neither did the exorcists. Someone was gilding the wrong lily. At eighty-three minutes, it is a visual annoyance, and the story does not make sense if you think about any single plot point for more than a few seconds. For instance, an older woman says that she put a possessed person in the basement. How? Two grown ass men could barely handle her. They do not want the mother to be present during the exorcism because it is dangerous, but sure, bring a cameraman and some American chick with no experience. They should be fine. It does not even effectively sustain a creepy atmosphere.
The Devil Inside makes Dan Brown seem like high art. There is a lot of denouncing the Vatican’s unwillingness to perform exorcisms as if the Vatican could offer help, but refuses. The first scene is a disclaimer, “The Vatican does not authorize the recording of Roman Catholic exorcisms. The Vatican did not endorse this film nor aid in its completion.” You could probably add this disclaimer before any movie, and it would be just as accurate. I love a good cover up conspiracy as much as anyone, but this one never gets above the ground, much like the possessed in this movie. The film never explains how two priests are just running around and casting out demons without anyone noticing when they are not exactly hiding their extracurricular activities. Also if these priests are using the Vatican’s techniques, maybe the Vatican recognized that they suck at it and decided to stop because that is the lesson that I got from this film.
The Devil Inside trucks in the worst demon possession tropes. The majority of the possessed are women, and possession in films is usually about horror of women’s bodies and sexuality. Think about it. You have a woman spread-eagle tied to a bed. Men surround her, chant at her and basically tell her to be a good girl while she utters something crude and sexual which a girl or woman would normally never utter while thrusting her tongue so obviously it is a demon. In the Bible, it was split pretty evenly according to gender and a much quicker process, but then you do not get a woman writhing on a bed while decent, virginal men are repulsed and try to make her not evil. I am glad that women contortionists are getting work doing what they love, but the whole thing is just ridiculous and frankly, boring for this chick to watch. No woman, whether possessed or caring for a possessed person, is going to dress herself or dress the possessed in light colors yet here we are. In these films, when men are possessed, it is far less showy and dramatic. So the film already lost me with that wardrobe choice, but when the possessed starts to dramatically menstruate on cue with the exorcism, but has no armpit hair, the filmmaker is telling me what the real issue is. One possessed woman screams at the priests and Isabella, “Her cunt will know me.” Eye roll. Filmmakers are fascinated with the vagina as a force of evil, a point of vulnerability for evil to enter in, and simply possessing one is like waiting for the other shoe to drop. The whole enterprise is tedious, juvenile and overdone. Do not let the exorcists or the demons hear Dame Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives. They will either respectively try to cast a demon out that is not there or be embarrassed that they need to step up their smack talking game.
The Devil Inside’s characters seem to exist solely for something disastrous to happen to them. They are horror movie archetypes, not three-dimensional people, and poorly copied ones. Isabella and the other characters exist in a cinematic vacuum waiting for a demon to list their most painful secrets. I wish that the demons were better at telling a story because they hurl the past without elaborating so we know that the characters are supposed to feel guilty because of x, but not enough about the surrounding circumstances for the revelation to resonate. Should not the demons be cheering the characters on for being naughty? Then we know that a character has been touched by a demon when they get slightly mean. These filmmakers must be incredibly sheltered because their idea of mean is cute and on a good day, what happens before I get my first cup of coffee. Things do get more dramatic in the last act, but considering what one character does then still gets to return home instead of authorities immediately snatching up that character, maybe it is less sheltered and a complete lack of understanding of how the real world works and how mean people can get without any supernatural intervention.
If you want proof that life is unfair, The Devil Inside never once plays the INXS song. It was a commercial success. It was the most profitable movie during its opening weekend. I am so annoyed that one promotional image of a nun with weird eyes is simply a blind person that Isabella passes so you could blink and miss the scene. The end of the movie directs the viewers to go to a website that no longer exists except through digital archives. I looked at it, and it is not worth the click.
I do not care how bored you are, do not watch The Devil Inside. It is a dull disappointment. I cannot think of one positive thing to say without qualifiers about this movie except that at least everyone was able to make a living. Suzan Crowley probably did the best acting job. Because of his accent, Simon Quarterman initially seems convincing. I have definitely seen worse demon possession films, but at least the truly awful films can be inadvertently amusing.