kilowog [Celluloid 01.06.12]



Year: 2012
Directors: William Brent Bell
Writers: William Brent Bell & Matthew Peterman
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: kilwog
Rating: 5 out of 10

Happy 2012, it’s time for yet another exorcism film, and why not? We’re all going to die before the end of the year anyway. Thank you, Mayans. The last time we saw a found-footage exorcism film released by a major studio, we saw Daniel Stamm’s debut feature, The Last Exorcism, which garnered both critical and commercial success after being guided by horror maven, Eli Roth. This time around the good people who brought you Transformers and G.I. Joe are set to bring you -- The Devil Inside. Ah, but there is a catch. Just when you believe that such a genre has nowhere new to go, this release, directed by William Brent Bell, manages to find some inventive ways to pave new paths and remind us that in fact, as the marketing suggests, no soul is safe.


True to form the film begins with well constructed archival police and network news footage as well as a 911 call detailing a triple homicide committed in the late 80s by a young suburbanite mother named, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley). Abruptly, the story picks up twenty years later as we are introduced to her now twenty-something daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade, not quite Italian as her character’s name) who is eager to learn more about her mother who has been locked away in a Rome mental institution for the last two decades; having been placed there as punishment for her crimes. To help do this, she has decided to take part in a documentary about the murders. Is the documentary her idea or that of seldom seen filmmaker, Michael (Ionut Grama), we’re really never quite certain as the perspective often shifts with her taking the lead one moment, and he the next, leaving little room for emotional attachment. One also wonders, what purpose could the documentary serve at all. How about this? The murders themselves, per Isabella’s recently deceased father were possibly the result of Maria’s failed exorcism. Sure, if you want to put your family’s deepest, darkest secrets on film for the world to see a la America’s Scariest Home Videos, then yes, that would work.

It is with this awkward decision to pick up a camera and investigate her mother that Isabella and Michael travel to Rome to see the woman in the flesh. However, before she can visit the hospital, she needs to be educated on the world of exorcism. Upon landing, Isabella takes a visit to the seminary where she meets two young priests, Ben (Simon Quarterman, straight out of a Banana Republic catalogue) and David (Evan Helmuth) who themselves are learning the ways of being an exorcist. Scarily, such classes actually exist at the Vatican. It isn’t until she actually goes to see her mother and experiences her demonic temper and special knowledge of that “bad thing” Isabella once did that daughter comes to believe in mom’s possession, enlisting the two frocked men to help her rid her of the evil spirit (or is it spirits?). Making the mission all the more precarious is that the church has turned down Maria’s case in the past, causing these rogue priests to act in direct defiance of the church, something they have done several times before, thus lending an air of danger and threat not just to their careers, but to the exorcism itself. Unfortunately, we never quite see that “danger” or feel a “threat” . . . except for some strong knocking on a door.

Shot by director of photography, Gonzalo Amat, the film proceeds at a relatively calm pace and the camera work dictates as such. Never feeling the intensity of the situation, or the true splendor of what it is to be in Rome, Bell as a director only rarely shows us what’s up his sleeve with a quick camera shake here and a short camera roll there. Thankfully, the “jump scares” are kept to an absolute minimum. However, it is the writing that leaves the film suffering the most. Wanting to take itself seriously, but only half doing so with “Real World” like confessionals from the principles and the inclusion of a shot of a random Italian checking out Isabella’s ass as she walks down the street; you wonder why not take yourself more seriously. Bell and his co-writer, Matthew Peterman, have created two great characters in David and Ben, and set up a third act with the potential to literally change the genre. Unfortunately, The Devil Inside does not change the genre, but thankfully it doesn’t lean on it either.

Leave a comment

Your Comment

Related articles