REVIEW- "THE DEVIL INSIDE."

When one's most beloved film of all time is "The Exorcist," all features that follow with a focus on Ol' Scratch are sure to pale in comparison. In my estimation, "The Exorcist" does not deserve to merely be regaled to the realm of horror or simply awarded as the pinnacle of possession pictures; it's celluloid supreme. Its release in late 1972 ushered in four decades of imitators from the immediate ("Abby," "Beyond the Door," etc) to much more recent fare such as "The Rite."

Pockets of infatuation with the sub genre have always surfaced, from the late 60's heyday of "Rosemary's Baby" to the millennial low budget machine that is the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, Beelzebub has overall meant big box office business. Since 2005 though, it has cross pollinated with another popular cinematic style of "found footage" resulting in offspring like forerunner "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," mockumentary favorite "The Last Exorcism" and the aforementioned "Paranormal Activity" trilogy. These flicks took classic elements and paired them with a Generation Y milestone "The Blair Witch Project" to create a world where exorcism is not only alive and well, the proof is in moving pictures, ready to download and dissect on message boards the world over. While "Emily Rose" was embedded with Christian overtones and courtroom drama, "The Last Exorcism" chose the Christopher Guest route peppering the tongue in cheek humor with outright horror as "Pararnormal Activity" ended up a lo-fi, limited setting clausterphobic demonic clusterfuck. All found an audience and each helped to reinvigorate Halloween fare that had long been obsessed with gore galore like the "Hostel" and "Saw" series.

While no one believed the Gothic graces of Hammer had returned or that a rival to "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" uncovered, the majority of critics and fans at least felt there might be a resurgence of minimalist scares and Satanic wares.

Enter "The Devil Inside," which invaded theaters at the start of 2012 with less than stellar reviews but formidable receipts. The formula is tried and true as they come with an introductory news report covering that nights events of a triple homicide that yields plenty of clues but few definitive answers. Flash forward twenty years and the daughter (Isabella) of the convicted murderer has enlisted the help of a filmmaker to document an attempted reconciliation with her mother who is committed to a mental facility in Rome. While attending a seminar on exorcism, she encounters two priests, Ben and David. The latter clergyman is devout but as an MD, he is open to scientific possibility while the former finds the bureaucratic nature of the church stifling and his dwindling faith restored in patches by the events of Isabella's investigation and local manifestations of evil. As the movie rolls on, we are introduced to a plethora of supporting characters and convincing cases of possession, culminating in a chain of events where Isabella and the priests come to the realization all too late of the formidable enemy they face. Further exposition regarding the plot could be added here but honestly, it's all stock and any seasoned genre fan can add up the missing pieces. While once or twice, a loop is thrown, it's not entirely unexpected and with the exception of a couple incidents, most of the jump scares can be scene from a mile away as they have been milled from every on screen scary story told in the last century.

The performances by the primary cast are competent and at times, convincing but lack the edge similar flicks like "Emily Rose," "The Last Exorcism" and "Paranormal Activity" had. Modern comparisons are the only fair assessments since none of these titles can hold a candle to greats like "The Exorcist," "The Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby." In due fairness, those milestone movies were overall big studio pictures with ensemble casts and major background players but there are better performances in similar independent features like the 2000s era trio noted above. Innovation is also absent; there were plenty of opportunities here to escape the retread of exorcism excess both classic and current (violent profanity, painful body contortions, etc) and without giving too much away, borrowing heavily from a top twist that carried "Shocker," "The First Power" and "Fallen." Sure, it was even pioneered in "The Exorcist" but there were rules. "The Devil Inside" doesn't seem to want to follow them or anything other than a well worn path, tread better by those who came before. Ultimately, you get a very nice skeleton that with a bit of creative nourishment could have packed some meat on the bones and delivered a much more satisfying film that would have consumed the viewer instead of wasting away on screen like an Olsen twin.

The greatest accomplishment I found came at the very end, which could have taken several routes and ended up going down a very familiar street but judging by how pissed the audience was, they were on the money with a completely ambiguous and unhappy one. This used to a big gamble and while the risk is not as big as it once was, neither is the payoff. I don't feel I was robbed like so many others as I left thinking "well at least they got one thing right" while my fellow moviegoers wore "what the fuck" faces right out into the bright lights of the real world.

If you haven't delved into the last decade of DVDs where possession is prominent, start with "Emily Rose" and go chronologically forward with "Paranormal Activity" and "The Last Exorcism" and you'll have an altogether better impression of this popular cross section of horror cinema. Should you yearn for a comprehensive book of shadows, the nightmares begin with "Haxan", achieve perfection with "The Exorcist" and have a hell of a good time in the 80s- "The Devil Inside" would sell its soul to be a part of that pedigree.