Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) is looking for the truth. Years prior her mother had been accused of murdering three people in cold blood and then phoning the police to brag about it. Her mother, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) was found crazier than confetti and shipped off to an Italian institution for treatment. Only now has Isabella learned that her mother apparently lost her marbles during an exorcism. She heads to Italy and teams up with two priests who perform back yard exorcisms on candidates rejected for the fun ritual by the church. Together they try to discover whether Maria Rossi is insane or whether the devil is using her as an elderly sock puppet.

Directed by William Brent Bell, who also directed the flopped cyber horror Stay Alive, The Devil Inside follows the mock documentary / found footage style of film making. The entire film is constructed from footage that the protagonists supposedly record while making a documentary on Maria Rossi and her rare, but fun, homicidal episodes. As such, some of the camera work is shaky and there isn’t an over reliance on dramatic background music to build tension. Bell did a great job with the atmosphere in this movie and Suzan Crowley is truly ball quiveringly badass as Maria Rossi.

That can't be healthy

I watched this movie, as I often do, without reading any reviews beforehand, so I was truly surprised when I saw how negatively it was received afterwards. The Devil Inside has some very creepy moments and is, in my opinion, one of the better exorcism movies out there today. I’m not sure if people have gotten used to instant satisfaction, gallons of blood or if movies like Twilight have dumbed down audiences to the point where they can no longer appreciate gradual buildups, but I’d definitely recommend seeing the movie and making up your own mind if you’re a fan of exorcism movies and have avoided it based on the many negative reviews out there. Every now and then a movie comes along that’s “cool” to hate, and this is one of them.

The Devil Inside has some solid acting, a few good jump scares, creepy settings, and one particularly memorable exorcism.  In my opinion if you like Paranormal Activity or The Blairwitch Project and you claim that this movie is bad and / or has bad acting, you’re a hypocrite. Not only does The Devil Inside have higher production values than either of those movies, but it is more frightening and better acted. In fact, if those two movies had babies and they were molested as children by Barney the Dinosaur this would be that movie.

The Devil Inside earns 7 out of 10… and a very baptized baby in this review.

GraveDave rose from the ashes of a zombie apocalypse and now runs a small horror review website named Life After Undeath when he's not out grunting and eating people.

GraveDave

View all posts by GraveDave
s website