Quick Look: The Devil Inside (2012)

I saw this movie this week, and I am somewhat surprised by the amount of negative reviews it has gotten.  I found it entertaining, and maybe because I did not go into with large expectations, I was not otherwise disappointed.

The movie is faux-documentary style, showing scenes as hand held guerrilla style video shots, stationary camera interview type shots, and news clips.  The story focuses on Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) travelling to Rome where her mother has been incarcerated in a mental institution for the last 20 years for 3 murders she committed in her home in Connecticut during an attempted exorcism.  The interviewer/documentor's name is Michael (Ionut Grama).  Isabella wants to learn if her mother, Maria (Suzan Crowley) is mentally ill or if there is a possibility she is possessed by a demon.  Isabella meets 2 priests studying in an exorcism class named Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), who we soon learn are performing exorcisms outside of the Catholic Church's authority.  Isabella, Ben, and David (with Michael filming) go back to the asylum to examine Maria, with very disastrous results to all involved.
As far as The Devil Inside goes, there is no new ground broken with the film's production (being the POV style), nor with the possession/exorcism story-line.  While the option of disbelief about demon possession is thrown out there, there is little doubt that the audience is led to believe the cases we are shown can be nothing but demon possession.  The ending also has drawn a significant amount of criticism, in fact several reviewers have called it the "worst of the year", and/or possibly the "worst of all time".  I disagree, in fact, I would state the ending is fitting to the film.  The hard feelings from certain reviewers may come from the fact that the plot is not tied up with a neat little "Hollywood bow", and that the film does shamelessly plug a movie tie-in website.
For reference the site is:
http://www.therossifiles.com/site/

My feeling is that if you like the POV horror style movie, and/or you like exorcism plots, you will like The Devil Inside.  There is enough shock and scare, as well as some nice shots around Rome to keep your interest, not to mention it is only 87 minutes long, so the movie does not bog down with unnecessary filler.