SPOILER ONE: The Devil Inside is not a supernatural interview with the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, asking him what exactly went down that night. SPOILER TWO: Hollywood is lying to you! The Devil Inside is not based on a true story, despite what the trailers would have you believe. SPOILER THREE: The Devil Inside ends not on a twist, nor an ellipsis, but a goddamn URL to the movie’s website where audiences can find “more information”, proving what I had suspected for the previous 82 minutes and 58 seconds: The Devil Inside is the most lazy, irredeemable, talentless and shamelessly stupid thing Hollywood has produced since Steven Seagal’s heyday.
In an already milked-to-chafing-point genre, The Devil Inside’s exorcism premise offers no new insight or twists, and instead clutches onto the clichés of genre with the white-knuckled fervour of an insecure screenwriter who is terrified to say anything new. And so, women (always women) contort their bodies; curse at priests; talk in disembodied male voices that can only be explained by demonic forces and not just your average run-of-the-mill Crying Game explanation; and expel blood from their vaginas, in case you weren’t already aware that female genitalia are innately evil.
Which is fine and well if it’s done right, or with a bit of originality, such as the Eli Roth-produced The Last Exorcism. But there’s not one breath of fresh air or passion to the proceedings here. Eschewing any potentially interesting exploration of the Church’s relationship with exorcism, secrecy and mental health, director William Brent Bell sticks to jump scares, no characterisation and the odd dropped camera – for suspense, you understand. The found-footage schtick is tired and dull to watch, the “naturalistic” acting is atrocious, the characters unlikeable and every scare is by-the-book. And did I mention that the worst ending ever committed to film is followed by a marketing campaign URL? Oh, I did.
But The Devil Inside has achieved something. It is in fact a masterpiece in pointlessness, a tour de force of worthlessness, a chef d’oeuvre of irredeemably lazy filmmaking. This may be the most ineffective exorcism film ever, but it hands-down beats all the others in terms of simply not giving a crap. Bravo.