Review: The Devil Inside Is Stupid and Should Be Hated

Official review of The Devil Inside available at The Herald.

That review has no major spoilers. Warning: this will!

Because the ending of The Devil Inside is one of the worst in recent history. To provide some context, this is a found-footage movie about a woman who killed her husband years ago and might be possessed, but her now-grown daughter can’t find out for sure because the Catholic church refuses to investigate. Except now she’s run into two science-priests who think she might be right–and are willing to put their careers on the line to find out!

And it’s all pretty boring, because none of these people have much in the way of personality, especially the god damn main character played by Fernande Andrade. Andrade’s a Brazilian model, yet somehow that rigorous training and experience doesn’t pay off in the context of a low-budget horror movie. Partly because of her worthless character, partly because the rest of the writing is equally dreadful, watching The Devil Inside is like eating bad calamari. You don’t notice anything’s wrong for a few moments after you start chewing, and then it’s rubbery and awful but you keep chewing in the hopes it will get better and anyway you’re not going to just spit it out, and then, well, no, it’s still horrible, but at least it’s almost over and you’re ready to swallow and move on with your life. Whew.

SImilarly, The Devil Inside almost becomes tolerable as it nears its end. All the crummy setup is out of the way, Andrade’s mom is undeniably possessed, and now she’s started killing people to boot. Oh no! Now she’s made one of the priests kill himself! That was actually kind of shocking! It turns out the mom is possessed by some kind of super-demon whose lesser-demon followers can possess anyone nearby. Andrade is possessed, too. In desperation, the surviving priest and the man who’s been documenting this all throw her in a car and rush off to go see a super-priest who can presumably exorcise the Devil himself–because that, it’s implied, is the monster who’s inhabited her mom all along.

What will happen next?? Oh. The demons will almost instantly possess the documentarian, who’s driving, causing him to crash the car into an oncoming truck. And everyone dies, probably. But if you’d like to learn more, the text on the now-black screen informs us, you can visit our website!

What the hell? Was this whole movie a commercial for a website? Why would we watch that? Who would possibly imagine that would be a satisfying ending? Other people in my audience shared my concerns. I didn’t speak to them, but as the credits began to roll, a man yelled out, “Oh, hell no!”

I can’t think of a better way to sum it up. No, The Devil Inside. Hell no. Now we’re all going home angry. Thanks a lot.