(2012) *
In 1989 Italian police receive a phone call from creepy Maria, who claims to have murdered three people. Arriving at the scene of the crime we follow the police (via crime scene investigation video) and find the end result of an exorcism gone terribly wrong. Having brutally murdered three priests, Maria is arrested growling like Linda Blair. She is subsequently deemed nuts and sentenced to life in Centrino Mental Hospital in Rome. Fast forward 20 years later where we meet Maria’s daughter, Isabella, who is hell-bent on finding out what happened to her mother. She decides to make a documentary of the entire affair, of course, and The Devil Inside is Isabella’s (found footage) documentary. Travelling to Rome, Isabella enlists the aid of two rogue priests who agree to help her save her mother.
The Devil Inside is terrible.
I’m a shaky-cam apologist but the excessive shaking found in The Devil Inside renders the exorcisms, which should have been the best part of the movie, dizzying and annoying. Doesn’t anyone know how to hold a fucking camera? The Devil Inside offers nothing that we haven’t seen before. To his credit Friedkin set such a high standard 30 years ago that it remains the only demon possession film anyone ever needs to see. Never scary for a second the story abruptly ends at a random moment. It’s as if the filmmakers said to the audience, “Yeah, we didn’t have an ending for this.” Given that the film was made for $1 million and grossed $100 million horror movie filmmakers don’t care about quality control and I don’t blame them. They know that teenagers will watch anything so there is no incentive to attempt anything remotely interesting. The film is cheaply made, terribly edited, badly acted and has no resolution. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
8 comments:
I felt the same way, Abduscias and I saw this at the theater when it came out. Terrible!
I picture your "Avoid, avoid, avoid" in the same tone as Helen Parr in The Incredibles, "Abort, abort, abort!"
Bummer - especially since it has that creepy nun picture.
Shaky cam apologist jumps ship! I feel like heard of this one, but man it sounds sucky.
They advertised the hell out of it before it was released so that's probably why it looks familiar.
Yeah that creepy nun was staring at me from bus stops all over town.
That's interesting what you said about The Exorcist. It's a horror cornerstone like Halloween or Alien but it hasn't spawned a slew of copycats. Possession films pop up here and there but it's not, like, it's own industry.
Which is fine, because possession stories often bore me.
Haha JPX I almost watched this one several times (because that nun is freakin' badass looking). I'm glad you watched it first!
Oh, the f-ing shaky camera!!!!!
i caught one of the creepy nun billboards getting onto the freeway. i was leaving a phone message at the time and then had to pause for a few seconds to shudder, "eeee. just saw a really creepy billboard."
i thought about checking it out just based on the strength of the billboard, and it sounds like $100 million worth of people also made the same call, but followed through on it.
i was lucky enough to hear it sucked before i went.
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