After watching The Devil Inside a couple Fridays ago, I can say with absolute certainty it is not the “number one movie in America.” Despite all the hype, the only thing I found inside was a bad plot, mediocre actors, and a few cheap scares.
    Without giving too much, the film (shot in documentary style) follows a young American woman trying to find her mother, who years earlier murdered three people in a botched exorcism and was committed to an Italian insane asylum. As expected, the mother is still in her possessed state, and frightens her daughter with self-inflicted cuts in the form of crosses carved over her body. The young woman searches for answers in Rome at a school for exorcists (no joke) where she meets two priests who offer to exorcise her mother. They believe that multiple demons have afflicted her, and during the exorcism a demon escapes and enters one of the priests. The woman follows suit, and both of the possessed eventually cause the demise of them all. The film cuts to black with a website and suggestion to learn more, and ends.
    I entered the movie knowing this would be a typical “exorcism” film, and wanted to see anything new it had to offer. In short, it didn’t. There was the same recycled levitation, speaking of tongues, little girls shouting profanity, and Twister-inspired spine bending we’ve seen ad nauseum since the 70’s. There was little scare, besides the creepy possessed priest trying to drown a baby in baptism and popping out of nowhere in the dark. The only thing truly terrifying was how the movie makers thought they could get away with such an anti-climatic, ineffective end to this disaster. What they may have thought would inspire curiosity, in actuality only elicited the boos and angry remarks of an audience who had had enough. I clearly remember “Are you kidding me?” and “I want my money back.”
    If you’re considering watching this move sometime in the future, I suggest you follow the crowd’s advice.