So it’s 2012 and supposedly it’s the end of the world soon so it must be time to get all the bad stuff out of the gate now. The Devil Inside is one of the found footage films that have constantly invaded the world since The Blair Witch Project. It shares look similar to Paranormal Activity in terms of how it’s filmed. See this film really doesn’t have many good points so this review will be nothing but negatives all the way down. It can’t be helped. The Devil Inside is the worst way to start out the 2012 film season.

So the story is that back in 1989 a woman named Maria Rossi kills three people during an exorcism. She is institutionalized and sent to Rome. We then meet Isabella Rossi her daughter who is trying to find out what happened to her mother and if she is really possessed by a demon. Isabella with her friend Michael who is filming the whole thing for the documentary we are watching. Over time we meet two catholic priests who do secret illegal exorcisms. They try to help Isabella figure out what is wrong with her mother.

One major is with the movie is that the camera never stops moving. It’s always shaking or jittering around. It’s terribly annoying and so distracting that it’s hard to follow it at times. There really aren’t any great performances in this at all. It’s pretty laughable you’ll see better acting in two episodes of Jersey Shore. Fernanda Andrade plays Isabella Rossi and you see her on the screen for 90% of the film and while she isn’t bad per se the character’s action are not believable in the slightest.

Don’t know if you can really blame the actors in this though, these films aren’t really made to be believable or looked at with that intent. It’s just in the range of these types of movies that have been released of late this might be the worse made one ever. Every jump and scare they put in had the exact opposite effect with the audience. All those moments induced laughter and heckling from the crowd.
Another major flaw with this is the ending. Not to spoil it but it really doesn’t end in the theater the last frame is link to a website to find out more. So after going through this for 82 minutes or so they give you no resolution but a cliff hanger of sort and lead to somewhere else to get the payoff you expected to get once you paid your money. It the most glaring rip off to date in a movie. Something like that you’d expect from some “reality show” type of thing on a cable network but never a major motion picture release.

In the end The Devil Inside is another in a long line of films trying recapture the original magic of the Exorcist. The mixing of this with found footage style of inexpensive movie making along with poor overall execution leads to an overall fail.
If this is the first of this type of horror film you see then it might work for you but probably not. Please skip this and see almost anything else like you come across. You’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

Final Grade=F

Originally published on Reel Film News