Movie 14: The Devil Inside.

May god protect me..and why is there a possessed nun on the cover?

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

Director: William Brent Bell

Want to know something silly?  "The Devil Inside" is the most profitable movie of the last five years.  It managed to make 101 Million Bucks..and cost a million dollars to make.  I know...isn't that crazy?

As is the case with most films I'm doing for this project, I've seen "The Devil Inside" and, as is the case with a lot of the films I'm doing for this project, I didn't care for it.  That might be putting it mildly.  I kind of hated this film.  But, I'm into the originally planned "Possession" movie phase of my project so, in order to maintain relevance, I suppose that means I gotta do this one, too.  It is, after all, the most profitable movie of the past five years.  It has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it made a lot of money.  So, let's start the pain, shall we?

Call me crazy, but I don't think you should start your movie with text.  Don't get me wrong, I love text, but they are called Motion Pictures for a reason.  But okay, The Vatican didn't want anything to do with your film.  Score one for The Vatican.  I wouldn't want to be a part of your shitty film, either.  I know, I know, I'm joking...it's all part of the illusion that this is "real" which is a conceit that works all the once.  But, okay, this is real, they filmed a possession, The Vatican totally doesn't like it and, somehow, The Vatican couldn't stop them.  That's kind of the main problem with that illusion, really: The Vatican is one of the most powerful organizations on the planet and they couldn't stop some documentary filmmakers from Hartford, Connecticut?

The dialogue in this film is awkward and overly staged.  Simon Quarterman is somewhat capable of weathering that terrible storm, though, and manages to come across far more natural and charismatic.  Lead actress Fernanda Andrade looks incredibly uncomfortable and unsure of her performance the whole time.  It's like night and day between the two of them.  It's not entirely her fault, though, considering how terrible the script is.  

Found footage is...okay, look, might as well get this rant out of the way.  I don't hate everything with the found footage description.  What I will say is that, as a direct result of the cheap and simple methods used to make them, it's become a lazy device that has over-saturated the genre way too much.  The result of this is "The Devil Inside."  I'll quote "Community": "It's not hard to tell a complex story when you can have people turn and explain it to the camera.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel."  

There's a huge amount of absurdism to the idea that Isabella would go visit her known-to-be-crazy Mom in a hospital populated entirely by people who known-to-be-crazy and then act surprised when the woman acts crazy.  It'd be like going to a church and being surprised when people start praying, or going to a Nickelback concert and being shocked when people are idiots.  Suzan Crowley isn't bad in the scene, though: she gives a decent, quietly intense little performance.  What I don't get, though, is why the cameramen don't appear on the security cam footage.  They're clearly right behind her, but they don't appear.  Are they Vampires?  Because I think they have a whole bigger problem than demonic possession if they are.

I'm not a religious man.  I have no real faith at all.  But I even I get a little edgy when a movie wants to start basically picking a fight with religion.  The reason I get edgy is not me taking offense, or being sensitive, but because it always sounds soap-boxey. It also always sounds forced.  So when our expository "rogue-priests" start discussing the "hypocrisy of the church" is just sounds like idiotic conspiracy theories and just rattles my nerves.  But, sure, fine, I'll roll with it because fiction.

They put so much effort into "real" that they forgot to make the exorcism actually scary.  Nothing about this film rings true whatsoever.  Except, maybe, priests having disagreements with the church and its foundation.  I buy that as something that could be a thing.  Everything else just feels unbelievably forced, dull, and poorly presented. It's another story that would work better on its own without the use of the found-footage device.  I might be interested in this story as a straightforward film, but the documentary style ultimately leaves everything cold and distant, which is the anti-thesis of demonic possession films, which are supposed to be intimate and emotional.  Other than documentary footage being physically close, none of that is here.

"Come that near to me again and I'll use your tongue to skull-fuck the baby killer over there" might be a good bumper sticker.

Isabella is a walking plot contrivance. Maybe that's what's bugging me.  The entire plot is "Isabella knows nothing, does something stupid, convinces other people to do stupid things, and stuff happens."  All of her dialogue is also so specifically designed to be similar to Sigourney Weaver's character in "Galaxy Quest"-repeat stuff back to the audience in a was that a "layman" could understand.  

Gotta love when your film dissolves into a series of half-second talking heads quickly creating some sort of drama.  It's like the director and writer basically said "Oh, shit, I forgot conflict!  It's the most basic part of creative writing and I forgot it?  Now where are my pants?"  So now, ten minutes of "this is about me" nonsense: always the hallmark of great characters.  I get that it's supposed to show the characters coming apart and stuff...but you know what shows that better?  Performances done by actors and stylish direction.  Like a normal movie.

He he, "He's been under a lot of pressure lately, so maybe that contributed to it" is an amazing reaction to "Guy tried to drown a baby during a baptism."  

When the giant baby priest commits suicide...that's actually not a bad scene.  His moment of clarity and uttering the lord's prayer is actually pretty effective.  It seems like after a big ton of nothing we've finally gotten to an actual, honest-to-god plot point.  Now we have an answer to "wait, why are we here again?"  Isabella wants to prove her Mom is...possessed and not crazy because that's somehow better (and it is, if you're a narcissist, which Isabella pretty clearly is-she's just worried about genetic transference) and so she gets a documentary filmmaker and some "rouge" priests to prove she is possessed, they attempt exorcism, Demon jumps out and starts body-jumping and now we have a plot it just took eighty hours to get there.

So, your friend is possessed and nearly dying?  Keep. Filming.  Also, medical professionals, it's fine to walk away from a seizure if the victims friend says he's a Priest.

Demonic possession in the backseat of a car.  That's not bad.  Kinda like...

WHAT THE SHIT?!

Car accident and then go to www.herestherestoftheplot.com?!  Screw this film.  Seriously, though, even though I knew it was coming it was still one of the most obnoxious endings to a film I've ever come across.  To end a film with a plot twist (the action JUST started) and then a link to a website in hopes of some sort of viral foolishness is ridiculous.

Final thoughts:  Well, I thi-

Please visit http://www.youdontdeservearesolution.com

1 star.  Blows chunks.