Footage Best Left Lost: The Devil Inside

If you love bad movies, the recent popularity of the "Found Footage" genre is like striking oil while out hunting with your coon hound. We'd depleted the Italian cinema and an infuriating number of DTV movies are turning out to range from "alright" to "actually kind of good", so things were looking pretty grim. But then, enterprising filmmakers created an entire genre where questions like "Can I see what's happening?" and "Don't I need a script?" are completely moot. All you have to do is make a cheap enough movie that will put as many asses in seats in the first couple weekends as possible and you're set. Ed Wood must be rolling over in his grave knowing that his film making techniques have become mainstream money makers.

"Paranormal Activity has made three quarters of a billion dollars worldwide? God damn it"

The Devil Inside is one of these movies, produced for an incredible one million dollars and earning an infuriating gross of over a hundred million because there is no justice in the world. Perhaps that's mean though. Comedy is a hard thing to get right but The Devil Inside succeeds at being absolutely hilarious. Granted its trying to be a horror movie but don't hold that against it. Most exorcism movies turn out to be hilarious.

Satan's muscle from Exorcism of Emily Rose

The movie starts with a 911 call from the protagonists mother in the 1980s saying that she has killed three people. Police come to investigate, stiffly giving exposition about the crime scene to let us know that it was an exorcism gone wrong. While painfully videotaping the detective explain that the victims were holding crosses, they hear a noise from the crawl space of the building and so naturally the camera man goes first. Because in an apparently unsecured crime scene where three healthy people were beaten to death, the man you want on point is the guy with a VHS camcorder.

For people too young to remember VHS Camcorders: They were roughly this size if you had a smaller one.

A boogity boogity jump scare commences as she impossibly pounces on the camera man from the side and it cuts to a news report. The police describe it as being a prayer meeting gone wrong which is either them trying to sweep the fact it was obviously an exorcism under the table or they're too clueless to piece the clues together. Given they began a forensic investigation of the crime scene before it was cleared, probably the latter. The news report also describes the community as having been "leveled" by the tragedy.

Pictured: The Community after the news of the tragedy.

We cut to the modern day and get out Found Footage Excuse framework: A documentary crew is following Isabella, the daughter of Maria the aforementioned possessed lady, as she goes to Rome to visit the Vatican Asylum her mother was sent to after she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. There's a lot of "Science vs Religion" and travelogue filler but the story really gets going when she visits the Exorcism class at the apostolic college at the Vatican where a professor is delivering exposition about demons and possessions.

"There will be a final test on this at the 50 minute mark of the movie"

This is where the movie starts to make shit up as it goes along to justify its own plot and by extension, the point where it becomes hilariously awesome. There are you see, apparently 800 satanic cults in Italy alone and so "we needed more exorcists" which gives me this image of Italy being the Old Detroit of Possessions, with the priests getting hammered out there by all the devils they're having to evict out of everyone. As a consequence, they're training Exorcists en masse to deal with this, enlisting a wide variety of believers and non believers. Isabella meets with a pair of them who tell her she needs to see a real exorcism.

Venkman is too competent to be in this movie sadly

But first she goes to the Vatican Asylum to see her mother. She's told that she reacts violently to all religious iconography or discussions and shown footage of her attacking various people over the years before being left almost totally alone with the person who is at best a violent psychotic and at worst a clown car full of demons. The mother shows signs of ritualistic self mutilation and acts well, crazy and\or possessed before becoming violent and attacking everyone. 

WHO COULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS?

Convinced that her mother is actually possessed because she knew about an abortion that Isabella had, she goes to Ben and David, Exorcist Bros to review the footage we just saw so they can explain the obvious shit we already figured out in the name of padding. We find out that the duo has been doing unauthorized exorcisms because they believe the Church isn't doing enough because its mired in bureaucracy. They are you see, Cowboy Cop Exorcists, who probably leap through the air with two crosses and are all shook up about poor Belial's civil rights but they get the job done. And to show her, they're going to take her to see one of their unauthorized exorcisms. Oh and the director and maybe cameraman shows up to confuse you given he's completely off screen for nearly a half hour.

Sir Very Rarely Appearing In This Movie

They explain that all demons have names and a place in the hierarchy of hell that they reveal during exorcisms, which means that the demon trapped inside these people are giving them their name, rank and satanic serial number during the priests interrogation. The demon inside this woman is named Berith, because making up your own demon is hard but going to Wikipedia and finding a demon you like is super easy. They head down to your standard class six creepy exorcism basement and jab her with a syringe full of what sounds like rophenol which well, people are going to ask questions when a Catholic priest buys a case of roofies.

This looks less like a possession and more like a game of Twister gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

So they jab her full of roofies and tie her to the bed-Wow, that's a sentence I just wrote. Thanks movie. Anyway, they tie her up and wheel in a bunch of hospital equipment to monitor her vitals. The demon throws your standard "sucks cocks in hell" dialogue at the priests while thrusting and making obscene gestures at them. It also throws in the delightful addition of the demon spraying period blood at them, because uh...demons are all like, 13 years old I guess.

"Bro, I know she's possessed by a demon, but should I?"

She proceeds to break out of her restraints and kick their asses until they managed to get her restrained and defeat the demon by yelling about St Barnabas at the demon while pinning her in a submission hold, so I guess it probably just tapped. They conclude that they beat the demon, so they should try to take on Isabella's mother. David has reservations because he's a priest and is worried about "losing my job" like he's the by the book partner who tries to hold his partner in line. But he goes along with it and they plan to secretly exorcise her using poorly described mechanisms to get private time with her under the church's nose while also letting them wire the room for video.

Thank God they labeled it "Overhead Cam" or else I might have assumed they bolted her to the ceiling. 

And at this point we find out that the Cowboy Exorcists are completely outclassed and maybe there was a reason she was kept permanently sedated by the Church. She starts out the exorcism by falling asleep in the face of their holy water, crosses and vestments. Then, when they're convinced that she's not possessed she hell shrieks at them so loud it blanks out the cameras and then proceeds to laugh off their every attempt to exorcise her. They start throwing holy water at her and she goes "OH NO NOT HOLY WATER" before she starts choking Ben while laughing her ass off and telekinetically hits David with the overhead camera. 

All the roofies in the world won't save you this time

Ben tries to use the name of the lord against the demon brigade but it just laughs it off and mocks him by saying that he's not going to win God's favor back after what he did, no matter how many exorcisms he performs. He tries the old "Tell me your name!" trick and the demon force pushes him across the room and says if he gets that close again, it will rip his tongue out and use it to skull fuck Isabella. 

"WHY ARE WE SO BAD AT THIS?"

It continues to trash talkwhile absolutely dominating them throughout the exorcism. Ben continues to use old exorcism standbys like "Do you hear me demon?" and it shuts him down at every turn, including replying with "Of course I hear you, all you fucking do is talk!" Isabella goes to her and demands that the demon leave her and her mother returns to normal, seemingly free of demons. Hooray! They take the footage and go over it, learning that there were four demons inside her Mother. Well huh, there were four of them in the room and they all talk about how powerful those demons were, but nobody really thinks about how they had to break a minor ranked demon over a period of weeks but Team Asb'el threw in the towel in a couple minutes. They're also all weird and moody since it happened, but that's probably nothing right? Oh well, David just has to do a baptism at work the next day and nothing could possibly-

Oh Devil Inside No!

Yeah, the rest of the movie is basically a victory lap for the Asb'el, the fallen angels who inhabited her mother. David almost kills a baby during a baptism and then somehow manages to escape back to their apartment where Isabella is telling a camera the sins of the Cameraman's mother. David freaks out upstairs and they grab a camera to go confront him in the dark. Quickly realizing that he's been possessed, they run back downstairs and are confronted by the police. They tell them that David is upstairs but he's possessed by a demon but the police naturally go upstairs to arrest him. 

"We're terrible at this"

David shoots himself with the gun and somehow Isabella is hurt and has to be taken to the hospital. I'm guessing the remaining demon went into her, but its hard to tell since its a found footage movie and the scene is filmed with zero light. They take her to the hospital but finally realize that they are totally in over their heads and need to get Isabella to more competent exorcists to remove the demons but before they can, she overpowers a number of hospital staff, killing at least one of them and showing obvious signs of demonic possession because duh. Ben tells the hospital staff that he's a priest and they let him take her away, because my hypothesis of this being a common occurrence in Italy is apparently absolutely correct. 

Fucking Mondays, am I right?

And thus begins one of the most insulting endings to a movie of all time: They drag her to the car and speed off towards the Vatican in the hope of getting her exorcised when she begins to wake up in the car. Ben fights her as she reveals that he let his uncle die in some unexplained incident and when he manages to pin her, the demons take control of the driver. He removes his seat belt, accelerates as fast as he can and plows the vehicle into oncoming traffic.And then it fades to black.

THIS IS A THING. THIS HAPPENED.

Yes, the movie fades to black, tells us that the case is unsolved and that we should go to this website to find out more information. Who does this? Who decided it was a good idea? Did they run out of time making the movie and tacked the ending on online?

The world may never know

A movie that was too cheap to actually finish the story made over a hundred million dollars in gross ticket sales. Every shitty director with dreams of getting a piece of that moon money is going to see this shit and rush out to make their own crappy low budget movie with a random ass hook, because the amount of money you can make vs the amount of effort required is so absolutely lopsided that its no wonder the market is and will continue to be saturated with these films. 

Its going to be a glorious time for bad movie lovers.