The Devil Inside

‘This is the film the Vatican doesn't want you to see,’ declares the poster quote for this stunningly inept ‘found footage’ exorcism movie. Much as it will pain devoted atheists – the Pope has a point. Stupid, appallingly acted and insulting, the real mystery is what possessed anyone to distribute this diabolical mess? When Isabella's deranged mother whispers, ‘Can you connect the cuts?’ she might be addressing the audience.

The jumbled, jerkily-edited plot follows photogenic but vacant Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) to Rome, where her mother has been incarcerated in a Vatican City psychiatric hospital for murdering three church group members 20 years earlier. Cue lots of CCTV footage and shaky-cam shots of eye-rolling, torso-twisting, obscenity spewing and tedious expository talk about multiple demonic possession. With her irritable cameraman and two young, ‘rogue’ priests, Isabella witnesses the exorcism of a young girl, Rosalita (Bonnie Morgan), and finally that of her straggle-haired mother, Maria (Suzan Crowley). As the fractious group's investigations progress, however, their behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.

If there is a God, director William Brant Bell and co-writer Matthew Peterman will surely suffer an eternity of punishment and suffering, if not simply for visiting this cinematic abomination upon us, then for contriving the laziest, most banal and frustrating ending in the history of all Christendom.