The Devil Inside

It's "Paranormal Activity" meets the "The Rite."

There. Can I go home now?

OK, so there is more to "The Devil Inside" than that (not much more, granted) but when you cut to the chase of it, that's the general idea. The film is in the same vein as the now wildly popular genre, being that of the "OH-EM-GEE-THIS-IS-TOTALLY-A-DOCUMENTARY" style. I think that this documentary style can work very well when utilized properly. I thought "The Blair Witch Project" was brilliant, and "District 9" and "Cloverfield" were quite good, as was "The Last Exorcism." Of course I hate the "Paranormal Activity" series, so I guess my tastes for this genre aren't the most consistent. I guess it all boils down to subject matter and execution, and the other films did well on both counts. "Paranormal Activity" is an interesting subject which was horribly executed.

Which brings us to "The Devil Inside." There really isn't too much to explain with this one, because movies about possession are so tired and derivative that you could pretty much sing along in the theater. Yes, you know the priest isn't going to "play by the rules" of the stuffy hypocritical church. You know that doctors are going to mark the possessed person down as crazy even if she starts growing devil horns and breathing fire. You know the demon is going to turn one of the good guys. You know that demon is going to somehow escape being exorcised with a SHOCKING TWIST ENDING. It's like a montage of every other possession movie you've ever seen, only done with a lower budget and worse camerawork.

Oh yes, the camerawork. It's handheld, which should be obvious because of the style, but I have a particular bone to grind with "The Devil Inside" because the character making the "documentary" is a terrible filmmaker. Let's put aside the fact that he is a one man production, which even for a low-budget documentary is ridiculous. My big complaint comes from the fact that it's done in that really obnoxious faux-realistic way where the camera will go out of focus all the frigging time, the shot composition and framing is crap, including way too close close-ups, and the camera is bouncing around like the dude mainlines espresso. The worst thing about that though is the camera's habit of really quickly zooming in on something, just a little bit, going out of focus, and then refocusing before zooming really quickly back out. They do this all the time. It's nauseating and so ridiculously amateur that no filmmaker of any reasonable quality would do it.

The bottom line is that this guy eats it as a cameraman. I just wanted to grab that little donut puncher by the nostrils and tell him to HIRE SOMEONE ELSE TO WORK THE CAMERA BEFORE OUR EYES EXPLODE.

The most elaborate gang sign ever invented.

At this point however, it must be asked if the film accomplishes what it set out to do. I have to admit there were times when it did get uncomfortable to watch, and not because of the camerawork. There are scenes in "The Devil Inside" which are admittedly pretty disturbing. In particular was a scene with an incredible contortionist who must not have a spine or something for all the grotesque positions she got in. Props to her. More than a couple times I found myself squirming in my seat a little bit, which is a good thing for a horror movie. But the other thing that horror movies should do is scare you, right? Was "The Devil Inside" scary? No, it wasn't. Not at all. I think a lot of this was just because it has been played out so much. It's hard to be scary when you know exactly what's going to happen.

Something I did have mixed feelings on however, was the thought that a films limitations in terms of style can have a positive impact on the intensity of the film. For instance, a really big part of "The Devil Inside" is eyes, specifically the dilation of the pupils. They use that a lot, including really uncomfortable extreme closeups of eyes with what they call "Pupil Cam." I wish I were making that up. The theory they have is that when a demon shows itself the person's pupils will dilate to an extreme degree.

Honestly, the "Pupil Cam 3000" never really shows the dilation happening, from what I could tell. For some bizarre reason they cut away from that whenever someone freaks out, which would have been an ideal time to show us what they were talking about. Instead, when someone in the movie becomes possessed, we see it from a further distance away with the handheld camera, and at that range and with that quality of picture, it's really hard to tell. It's more of a hint, really. I did think to myself at a couple points that their eyes looked a bit more black than normal, but that could have just been my imagination. Or it could have been them acting really really creepy that gave them away.

The point of this is that there are several moments in the movie where pupil dilation is a big deal. It's basically the crux of the whole climax. It's supposed to function as a dramatic beat and a terrifying moment where you realize that another one of the characters is possessed, and bad things are about to happen. But how can that function as a horrifying moment when you can't even see it? Or is that the point? Is it there to begin with, or are you just projecting it? Are they going for a "you don't see the shark" mentality? Is the fact that you can't really see supposed to back up the validity of the thought that these are real events?

Or did they just overestimate how well the effect showed up on the screen? You make the call.

Oh, and the ending sucks, too. Since when did "no resolution" become "everything is resolved?"

"You think you have won! What is light without dark? What are you without me? I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me! What? I totally won? Oh. Never mind then."

BOTTOM LINE - If you hate this kind of movie, it's no different from the rest of them. You'll hate it. If you like this kind of movie, just watch "The Last Exorcism." It's far superior to this crap.