Movie Review - The Devil Inside

The Devil Inside (2012)

Starring Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Ionut Grama, and Suzan Crowley

Directed by William Brent Bell

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Nearly a year ago today, The Devil Inside made over $38 million its opening weekend only to drop by over 70% in weekend #2.  The moviegoing public is generally a very forgiving group, but the CinemaScore rating (whoever the heck they are and where they tally their votes is unknown to me) of opening night filmgoers was an 'F', a rare occurrence.  Seeing as how I often enjoy horror movies that the general public doesn't rally behind (see Orphan and Let Me In as two examples of fantastic scary movies as of late), I figured I'd give this one a go.  For the most part, despite forking over the massive amount of dough in its first weekend, the public got this one right.

Set up as a fake documentary (because when you want to make cheap horror movies, that's obviously what you must do in this day and age), The Devil Inside follows twentysomething Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) on a trip to the Vatican.  Her mother Maria (Suzan Crowley) resides in a mental institution in Italy after having killed three people during an exorcism being performed on her nearly twenty years prior.  Isabella hopes to learn whether her mother truly is possessed by the devil or if she's simply mentally disturbed.  With the help of both an ordained and excommunicated priest (Evan Helmuth and Simon Quarterman), Isabella and her videographer Michael (Ionut Grama) set out to find out the truth about her mother.

I will admit that I was surprisingly intrigued during the film's first half.  I was impressed by the fact that director and co-screenwriter William Brent Bell was taking his time, not throwing many scares our way.  This was a "documentary" after all, so there was an amount of realism in the restraint he held.  However, I expected there to be a bit of a payoff and, in the end, there really wasn't.  There's been a lot of ire spewed towards this film because the ending tells the audience to visit a website to find out more info.  While certainly tacky (and unhelpful as the website contains no info that advances the story in any way), the film has a definitive ending so it didn't bother me nearly as much as everyone else.  Still, The Devil Inside contains the same old exorcism tomfoolery we've seen in other movies and fails to provide a unique take on the genre.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+