The Devil Inside (Blu-ray) Official AVSForum Review

( Max score: 100 )

80

Film Synopsis:

In 1989, emergency responders received a 9-1-1 call from Maria Rossi confessing to three brutal murders. The courts found her insane - but something else found her first. Twenty years later, her daughter Isabella's search for answers led to an exorcism by two rogue priests revealing that her mother is possessed by four powerful demons. Now, Isabella must face pure evil or forsake her soul.

My Take:

The Devil inside is told via a documentary style narrative that revolves around a woman trying the resolve events that occurred twenty years earlier involving a grisly murder that resulted in the arrest, incarceration and ultimate commitment (for insanity) of her mother. Believing that the deaths (of three local clergy members) occurred during an attempted exorcism involving her troubled mother Maria, Isabella travels to Rome, Italy where her mother is incarcerated at The Centrino Hospital for the criminally insane. While in Rome, Isabella and her cameraman Mike meet up with two young priests who don't exactly agree with the church's perspective on what determines the need/requirement for an exorcism and have been secretly performing them in the hopes of helping those that have fallen prey to the evil that has taken control of them. These young men have dealt with these situations on a relatively small scale, meaning one soul one demon. It's when they travel with Isabella to The Centrino and encounter Maria that they realize that what they are dealing with now is something far more dangerous and evil than they experienced before. One soul, four demons, and no turning back..

I find that with supernatural horror films it is essential that the elements contained within the story allow us to identify with it on a level that successfully draws us in prior to unleashing the evil required to generate chilling suspense and terror. I didn't have that experience. This is a decidedly contrived film, beginning with the documentary style telling right through to the paint by the numbers script which includes a series of been there and done that exorcism encounters and a ridiculous ending that drops in like a kick in the teeth just when things begin to finally get interesting. The cast of unknowns does little to add to the proceedings although I did find that the two possessed women had a few moments that proved worthwhile. At 83 minutes this film should move right along but the pacing is just abysmal. The end result is a lackluster genre entry that is just plain forgettable. The devil inside is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Entertainment as part of a Best Buy Exclusive.

Parental Guide:

The rating is for disturbing violent content and grisly images and for language including some sexual references.

Audio: 80

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Video: 80

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The devil inside comes to Blu-ray Disc from Paramount featuring 1080p AVC encoded video that has an average bitrate of 32 Mbps and lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound that has an average bitrate of 3.6 Mbps.

Being a documentary as seen through the eyes of video cameras this film uses both hand held and stationary camera perspectives often switching back and forth. As such the video rarely resembles high definition/film although this is intentional. Colors are natural, contrast is well balanced and black levels are slightly elevated. I didn't observe any distracting artifacts and had no complaints with the stylized video quality which contributed to the source material.

The lossless audio presentation has no trouble conveying the predominantly front loaded elements present in the soundtrack recording. Dialogue reproduction is good with clear intonation and fair room penetration. The mix does a nice job of handling the various directional cues associated with the hand held camera's perspective and near field simulation. There is some off camera and atmosphere creating sounds mixed to various points in the sound field and the effect is decent. Dynamic range and low frequency effects rarely get an opportunity to shine save for the film's final moment which is pretty good. Like the film, this audio/video experience does little to distinguish itself.

Bonus Features:

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• Ultraviolet Digital Copy

Final Thoughts:

The devil inside is a supernatural horror/thriller that brings nothing original to the table and winds up a contrived, flavorless and ultimately ineffective genre entry. Available from Paramount Home Entertainment on Blu-ray via a Best Buy Exclusive it features fair but unremarkable high definition audio/video quality and no supplemental material. Unless you're already a fan this one is a pass.