Demonic possession. Scary shit, right? Guttural speech in tongues, unnatural contortion, spontaneous bleeding, pea soup. Ever since Reagan told Father Damian to fuck his mother and other various obscenities in 1973 in perhaps the most important film of the horror sub-genre "The Exorcist", demonic possession became and has remained one of the most frightening and disturbing horror sub-genres. Demonic possession scares us because it suggests that we as humans are nothing but vacant flesh vessels, vulnerable to the manipulation of unimaginably evil forces beyond our world, at any time and any place. It's especially disturbing to religious folk, as it suggests that the protection of God has the potential to fail. In other words, it makes for great entertainment and an excellent sleep deterrent if Starbucks is closed and your dealer's in the slammer. Anyways since "The Exorcist", there have been many filmmakers following in its infernal footsteps, the most recent being William Brent Bell with "The Devil Inside".
I haven't really been intrigued by many new movies lately, but "The Devil Inside" was an exception. I decided to go see it last Tuesday night, after being enticed by the wonderfully sinister previews (which I suppose they're designed to do). Now I've been conditioned from a young age to embrace everything frightening, thrilling, and otherwise unnerving. I grew up on horror movies, and have been watching them for so long that my "threshold of fear" if you will runs far and wide; in other words, when a horror movie can genuinely scare me, startle me, or occasionally make me shout "MOTHERFUCKER!", I know it's a good one. "The Devil Inside" did just that. The exorcisms in the movie of course were will breaking, and I found myself more than once staring at the screen mouth agape in terror, tearing the skin from my fingertips at times (that's another way I know the scary is good, it commands my attention and respect). However there were many points in the movie which operated on the the good old fashioned "BOO!" technique, and it worked, or perhaps I just scare easily.
The movie features handheld camerawork and is shot as a documentary style film, similar to that of other such horror movies as "The Blair Witch Project" and "REC". I personally am a fan of handheld when it comes to horror movies, simply because I think it adds a little something to the fear factor. A little more chaos. A little more uncertainty. A little more reality. A human element, any one of us could be behind that camera, it puts you right in the thick of it. It's as if you're no longer just watching a movie, you're involved. At least that's how it is for me, then again I am a bit theatrical.
So the overall scary of the movie and the handheld camerawork won me over, but there were some things that I thought were a little ridiculous. And when things get ridiculous, the scary begins to dissipate. Now I'm not an expert on demonic possession, I'm not really in a position to say if this is how it really goes down or not, but towards the beginning of the movie when our protagonist Isabella visits an exorcism class at the Vatican Academy while in Rome filming a documentary about demonic possession and the case of her mother Maria (who is thought to be possessed, and was sent to a mental hospital in Rome after killing three people during her own exorcism when Isabella was 8), the instructor of the class mentions multiple demonic possession (the possibility of more than one demon to possess one host) and transference (the possibility of a demon or demons to transfer from the current host to a new host). And the plot device has landed, he mentions this specifically because it will be important later, very important, which it is. These two concepts come into play when Isabella and her rebel priest friends David and Ben get the green light to examine Isabella's mother in the mental hospital to determine if she is the victim of demonic possession. Turns out she is (surprise), and not only is she possessed by a demon, but others as well. Enter multiple demonic possession plot device. That's not the ridiculous part, the transference is the ridiculous part, we're getting to that. So after Maria flips out, flies across the room and tells the dynamic trio to fuck off in several languages (she doesn't really say that, but for the purpose of humor she does), David is the first that starts to act a little weird. The day after the Maria episode, David is scheduled to perform a baptism on a baby, then the devil inside (heh heh) makes him almost drown said baby in the baptismal font. Turns out after being close to Maria the previous day and holding her down during the flip out, her demons transferred to him THROUGH TOUCH. Like it's the fucking flu. Like we're playing fucking demon tag. David realizes he's possessed, and shoots himself. Isabella collapses in shock after witnessing the event and is rushed to the hospital by Ben, who finds out that she has had been possessed apparently when David shot himself, and she was like right there. So with all this contagious possession going around, Ben decides to get Isabella out of the hospital immediately, right after she rips a nurse's throat out (and not getting a drop of blood on her, continuity conundrum). So the cameraman Michael and Ben speed off down the Italian highway, Ben trying his best to restrain Isabella in the backseat. She escapes his grasp for a couple seconds and grabs a hold of Michael's face and, you guessed it, TAG YOUR IT!!! DEMONS!!! The demons are transferred to him, so far Ben is unaffected for some reason by the way. We see that sinister distant look in Michael's eyes, he swerves into the oncoming lane and a semi hits the car head on, killing the three of them presumably. We're going to have to go with that because THAT'S where the movie FUCKING ENDS. I was pissed. I hate sudden endings like that, seriously it's like one of those endings where it just seems like the writers ran out of ideas, so they kill everyone off instantly. Quick fix. Oh well, no room for a sequel...yet.
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