d_griffindorIsabella Rossi travels to Italy to visit Maria, her estranged mother of 20 years, locked away in an asylum after being convicted of killing 3 people in 1989, supposedly during demonic possession. Isabella seeks to understand the truth behind the horrific events and to find out if her mother really is possessed. Attempts to cure Maria using unconventional, Vatican-prohibited exorcism methods go awry, and they discover that Maria is possessed by more than one demon, which will not go quietly.
This ever-popular genre of cinema adds to its encyclopedic index a forgettable, lacklustre entry; a cliché lost amongst the listings of its scarier, more effective supernatural found-footage counterparts, such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.
The sheer lameness of The Devil Inside is difficult to overstate. It is nothing more than a cheap, uneventful production made worse by robotic, unconvincing acting and a blatant lack of effort in creating thrills and chills.
Despite some genuinely disturbing scenes where innocent characters become possessed contortionists and an unnerving scene with Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) in her room at the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane, The Devil Inside is, quite frankly, boring.
Amateur in all its constituent elements – acting, writing and directing – this is a movie to be avoided at all costs. With one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings in recent history, this movie is frustrating as it could have been so much better.
As William Thomas of Empirewrites: “Some found footage should really just stay lost.”
2/10