The Devil Inside merges two sub-genres of horror that should be killed off like the teens in a remade slasher movie. The exorcism genre and the found footage genre have long overstayed their welcome in the film industry and need to be abolished. The found footage genre, I can sometimes tolerate. The exorcism genre I can barely look at. Merging them together is a colossal miscalculation.
There is something in cinema nicknamed "trailer fail." You may not know the term, but you've certainly experienced it. When a comedy movie experiences "trailer fail," it means all the funny and entertaining scenes exist in the trailer, rendering the rest of the film as "filler comedy." If an action or science fiction film is victim to it, take Richard Gere's The Double, it gives away the big plot twist in the trailer. And if in a horror film, this happens a lot in found footage films, all the jump scares and interesting scenes are in the trailer. The Devil Inside isn't a case of trailer fail, but a case of trailer disgust. Every scene in the trailer is the highest quality material you'll find in this film. If you didn't enjoy the trailer, then you didn't enjoy the best parts.
Most exorcism movies pack in a redundant and asinine plot. This one is no exception. In October of '89, Maria Rossi (Crowely) committed triple murders while performing an exorcism in her ragtag house. Twenty years later, her daughter, now grown up, is Isabella and is in desperate need for answers.
She and her convenient documentarian friend take a trip to Rome, Italy where her mother is being held in a mental hospital to not only seek answers from her, but to dive into the mysteries and the actions of exorcism.
We get a bogus 911 call at the beginning, shaky camera footage upon arrival to the house of Maria Rossi, fake news reports, then we get about a half hour of incredibly mundane and dry dialog about religion, Christianity, the Vatican, churches, and of course, exorcisms. Tell me, Paramount. If you want this to be the next Paranormal Activity, why did you include so many tiresome scenes of dialog that will bore your audiences? That's not to say films like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity didn't have dry spots. I was never bored by either, but can see why some were. The big difference with those films is they both had one thing to back themselves up with; an eerie, ominous atmosphere. Nothing about The Devil Inside's setting is eerie or ominous. It's as dry as the material we're presented with.
I will say The Devil Inside gave me one of the best theater experiences I've had in a while. Usually, when a movie ends, at least in ones I see, everyone just gets up and walks out whispering or being utterly silent. I was in a theater of about fifteen people of all different age groups and as soon as the abashed ending rolled around and concluded the mess we all watched, everyone was yelling obscenities and mimicking the film they just saw. When I was in the restroom at the end, I engaged in multiple conversations with people who were just as angry and as cheated as I was. One man said "I haven't seen something that horrible since Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost!" A woman was questioning the ending from multiple aspects. I turned to her and said "a movie of this poor nature is not worth your good questions. It can barely answer its own." Ever since The Exorcist in 1973, we have been paralyzed by the very thoughts of exorcism. Now, we've seen it all. Some people in my theater were laughing at the film. Because it focuses on the exaggerated hokum of the practice. Like all of the movies do. Climbing the walls, spider-walking down the stairs, screaming, using foul language, and out of place deep voices have all become standards in these kinds of films.
Last year, around this same time, a movie about the dramas of the practice came out. It was Anthony Hopkins' The Rite, another film of the same nature I found long and tedious. But at least it had insight, which I believe I acknowledged. The problem was it was long and uneventful, but at least it didn't try to glorify the practice. The Devil Inside doesn't even look in the same direction as the new ground it likes to think it is breaking.
I bring up The Rite because in the time frame of almost a year I've seen a long drama about the practice and a terrible found footage faux documentary on it as well. I found The Rite afloat in a sea of mediocrity, and I find The Devil Inside to be a work of trash filmmaking. My question; will there ever be a good exorcist movie ever again? We've seen two films in two separate genres fail to bring justice to the idea of the practice. My assumption from here on out is that we will never get a film like the 1973 masterpiece.
It's only January, and I have the perfect candidate for the top of my worst films of the year list.
Starring: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, and Suzan Crowley. Directed by: William Brent Bell.
There is something in cinema nicknamed "trailer fail." You may not know the term, but you've certainly experienced it. When a comedy movie experiences "trailer fail," it means all the funny and entertaining scenes exist in the trailer, rendering the rest of the film as "filler comedy." If an action or science fiction film is victim to it, take Richard Gere's The Double, it gives away the big plot twist in the trailer. And if in a horror film, this happens a lot in found footage films, all the jump scares and interesting scenes are in the trailer. The Devil Inside isn't a case of trailer fail, but a case of trailer disgust. Every scene in the trailer is the highest quality material you'll find in this film. If you didn't enjoy the trailer, then you didn't enjoy the best parts.
Most exorcism movies pack in a redundant and asinine plot. This one is no exception. In October of '89, Maria Rossi (Crowely) committed triple murders while performing an exorcism in her ragtag house. Twenty years later, her daughter, now grown up, is Isabella and is in desperate need for answers.
She and her convenient documentarian friend take a trip to Rome, Italy where her mother is being held in a mental hospital to not only seek answers from her, but to dive into the mysteries and the actions of exorcism.
We get a bogus 911 call at the beginning, shaky camera footage upon arrival to the house of Maria Rossi, fake news reports, then we get about a half hour of incredibly mundane and dry dialog about religion, Christianity, the Vatican, churches, and of course, exorcisms. Tell me, Paramount. If you want this to be the next Paranormal Activity, why did you include so many tiresome scenes of dialog that will bore your audiences? That's not to say films like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity didn't have dry spots. I was never bored by either, but can see why some were. The big difference with those films is they both had one thing to back themselves up with; an eerie, ominous atmosphere. Nothing about The Devil Inside's setting is eerie or ominous. It's as dry as the material we're presented with.
I will say The Devil Inside gave me one of the best theater experiences I've had in a while. Usually, when a movie ends, at least in ones I see, everyone just gets up and walks out whispering or being utterly silent. I was in a theater of about fifteen people of all different age groups and as soon as the abashed ending rolled around and concluded the mess we all watched, everyone was yelling obscenities and mimicking the film they just saw. When I was in the restroom at the end, I engaged in multiple conversations with people who were just as angry and as cheated as I was. One man said "I haven't seen something that horrible since Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost!" A woman was questioning the ending from multiple aspects. I turned to her and said "a movie of this poor nature is not worth your good questions. It can barely answer its own." Ever since The Exorcist in 1973, we have been paralyzed by the very thoughts of exorcism. Now, we've seen it all. Some people in my theater were laughing at the film. Because it focuses on the exaggerated hokum of the practice. Like all of the movies do. Climbing the walls, spider-walking down the stairs, screaming, using foul language, and out of place deep voices have all become standards in these kinds of films.
Last year, around this same time, a movie about the dramas of the practice came out. It was Anthony Hopkins' The Rite, another film of the same nature I found long and tedious. But at least it had insight, which I believe I acknowledged. The problem was it was long and uneventful, but at least it didn't try to glorify the practice. The Devil Inside doesn't even look in the same direction as the new ground it likes to think it is breaking.
I bring up The Rite because in the time frame of almost a year I've seen a long drama about the practice and a terrible found footage faux documentary on it as well. I found The Rite afloat in a sea of mediocrity, and I find The Devil Inside to be a work of trash filmmaking. My question; will there ever be a good exorcist movie ever again? We've seen two films in two separate genres fail to bring justice to the idea of the practice. My assumption from here on out is that we will never get a film like the 1973 masterpiece.
It's only January, and I have the perfect candidate for the top of my worst films of the year list.
Starring: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, and Suzan Crowley. Directed by: William Brent Bell.