Suzan Crowley as Maria, left, and Fernanda Andrade as Isabella Rossi in a scene from "The Devil Inside."
“Paranormal Activity” really made it look easy, didn’t it? How hard could it be to make one of those found-footage horror movies? All you really need is a digital camera, grainy recordings of doors slamming shut and two people to shout about Ouija boards or ghosts or whatever, and you’ve got yourself an instant blockbuster, right? Well, not quite.
Granted, “Paranormal Activity’s” lo-fi, D-I-Y aesthetic and loose, improvisatory pacing gave the film a deceptively simple quality, but the film’s slow-boiling tension and foreboding atmosphere were far more difficult to pull off. And it’s these very important elements that films like “Apollo 18” and “The Devil Inside” seem to forget. Sure, they always remember to make the films tedious and cheap-looking, but when it comes to actually making these films scary, they always manage drop the ball.
As in the trailer that suckered millions of people into making this the No. 1 one movie at the box office this past weekend, “The Devil Inside” opens with a disclaimer warning that the Vatican did not endorse this film. First of all, shut the hell up, movie. Second of all, this can’t actually be a thing. Does the Vatican actually endorse films? If so, what is the Catholic church’s official position on “2 Fast 2 Furious” or “Air Buddies”? What does a papal movie endorsement even look like? A cartoon depiction of the pope giving you a thumbs up?
From there, we’re introduced to the subject of our mockumentary, Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), an emotionally fragile young woman whose mother killed three people during a botched exorcism attempt during the late ’80s and has been held in a Catholic mental hospital in Rome ever since. While Isabella attempts to uncover the truth behind her mother’s strange condition, she meets a pair of rogue priests who covertly perform unauthorized exorcisms. In spite of the fact that the priests live in constant fear of the Vatican finding out about their actions and excommunicating them, they have no problem with having a camera crew following them around to record their secret activities.
Most bad movies don’t invoke the level of rage “The Devil Inside” has invoked, but that’s mainly because most bad movies have the courage to be actual movies. “The Devil Inside” isn’t a movie, it’s more like an unfinished workprint of an even shittier movie. Lacking tension or even a point, “The Devil Inside” is barely feature-length, features uninteresting characters mumbling out dry dialogue, contains endless debates about the authenticity of exorcisms, has scenes blatantly stolen from “The Exorcist” and an abrupt ending that leaves several important plot points unresolved.
Even worse, “The Devil Inside” is so totally and completely cliche riddled it isn’t above using jump scares repeatedly. Could we stop this already? Loud noises do not automatically equal scary. Jump scares are the horror-movie equivalent to fart gags. They’re way too easy, always get an unearned reaction and are favored by the desperate and creatively bankrupt.
Bad in a way that almost seems intentional, “The Devil Inside” often plays like an unintentional parody of the found-footage genre. Unfortunately there’s nothing (intentionally) funny about “The Devil Inside.” The power of Christ compels you to avoid this worthless rip-off (Ha! Wordplay)!
Rating: W
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