The Devil Inside (2012)

Directed by William Brent Bell. Starring Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Suzan Crowley, Ionur Grama, Bonnie Morgan. [R]

Demon-possession thriller, pointlessly and unconvincingly contrived as a found-footage exercise, follows a young woman (Andrade) as she learns more about exorcism—and even witnesses a few—when investigating her mother (Crowley), locked away in a psych ward after committing multiple murders while being exorcised herself many years earlier. Excruciating, to say the least; the acting is overwrought, the script hammered together out of pseudo-intellectualism and unconvincing supernatural hooey, and the execution downright laughable—several inept moments of levitation and hurling people like rag dolls and the like suggest the movie wants to swerve into parody territory, but forgot the follow-through punchlines. Whatever faintest sliver of emotional involvement there might have been is defeated by the filmmakers’ disinterest in developing any recognizable relationship traits between the mother and daughter; why care about what happens to either one of them, or the hapless priests doing the heavy lifting during paranormal confrontations as credible as a YouTube video swearing this is the real deal, guys!? The hissable ending is a full-blown insult to genre fans and cinéastes of all shades, leaving such a bad taste in the mouth you’ll want to gargle holy water (or guzzle spirits) immediately after.

11/100