Devil Inside is that rare horror movie that plants its horror seeds in your brain in its opening moments. They then bear fruit with increasing fervor by scaring you as the film progresses. Therefore, that fear emerges from deep inside your soul as the minutes pass in the theater, and that's exactly why Devil Inside is so deliciously ghastly in its ability to shake you to your core.
In fact, soul is at the heart of Devil Inside: Humans' ongoing battle against the netherworld’s demons. Isabella is a twenty-something woman. When she was a young girl, her mother was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the murders of three Catholic Church members. Now in the present, she has hired a documentarian to film her efforts to get to the bottom of her mother’s illness… or is it possession?
They head to Rome, where her mother is being cared for in a mental institution. Isabella visits a school for exorcism where she meets two priests who will eventually aid her in her efforts. That, my Movie Fanatic friends, is all we will say about the plot of The Devil Inside. What you need to know about this spellbinding film is that it is purely terrifying, riveting in every way and one of the most extremely original films we’re seen in the horror genre in some time.
Writers Brent Bell (who also directed) and Matt Peterman have crafted a film that some may say is a found footage type of flick, yet that would do it a gross injustice. There is a real narrative at the heart of Devil Inside. The plot and the bumps in the road that the audience experiences through the eyes of our priests and Isabella are as scary as Hollywood can produce.
The Devil Inside is actually a deeply personal film and that is probably why it is so horrifying. The audience can commiserate with Isabella as we all have mothers and most of us would do anything to see them well. Her struggle is ours, but when there are supernatural forces at work, there is only so much a human being can do. Thus she puts her hope in the professional exorcists. When the priests are fearful, we as an audience are completely petrified.
At the beginning of the film, and as is shown in The Devil Inside trailer, it is stated that the film is not sanctioned by the Church, nor did they aid in the filmmaking. It makes us think, as an audience, if these classes for priests really exist that delve into the art of the exorcism. Are there individuals, soldiers of God if you will, who go to battle every day for the sake of men's souls? Even if the history behind the story of Devil Inside is fiction, the tale is told with such bold strokes that it feels all too real. And because of that, it is sheer terror incarnate on screen -- an instant horror classic.
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