So, I’m not sure how many people are up to going to the first showing of horror films in the early afternoon, but I am!

I like going to the movies by myself on my days off. At my local theater, they are only $4.50 to see, and I have a rewards card. It’s a nice time to sit still for a while, and I can lotion my hands and put on aloe gloves (I totally do this in public). After a slew of films in fall of 2011, I haven’t seen any recently, so I chose The Devil Inside as a nice way to jump start 2012! How fun.

The Devil Inside is about a Pretty Girl (Isabella) who travels to Rome to find understanding in the botched exorcism of her Crazy Mom (Maria). Accompanying her is a filmmaker who will be nicknamed the American (Michael), and once they reach the Vatican, they befriend two priests/students of the Vatican School of Exorcism, Cute Guy (Ben) and Pasty Guy (David).

I just liked Cute Guy. Had this Joseph Gordon-Levitt-as-a-priest vibe going on. He probably knows how to play the guitar.

Cute Guy c/o media.theiapolis.com

According to Rotten Tomatoes (where the film currently holds a rating of 8%, but the day is young!), this is the synopsis:

In 1989, emergency responders received a 9-1-1 call from Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) confessing that she had brutally killed three people. 20 years later, her daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) seeks to understand the truth about what happened that night. She travels to the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Italy where her mother has been locked away to determine if her mother is mentally ill or demonically possessed. When she recruits two young exorcists (Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth) to cure her mom using unconventional methods combining both science and religion, they come face-to-face with pure evil in the form of four powerful demons possessing Maria. Many have been possessed by one; only one has been possessed by many. — (C) Paramount Insurge

The people don’t really matter. They are X, Y, and Z in this situation, the now standard formula in that “ordinary people” can find themselves in the craziest places and oh- of course there’s a camera RIGHT THERE. Thank you, Blair Witch. In a new genre where elements such as shaky camera movements, frenzied panic and off screen action used to have an impact, the viewers are kind of now jaded. Like, if I saw this a few years ago, I may have liked it better, but I could tell where the story was heading. The viewer understands it all in a few moments, and we just have to suffer as the poor souls on the screen barely grasp it. Probably because they didn’t spend their $4.50 or $12 on movies like this.

But I’m not going to lie: I love cheaply made horror films that I could have made myself. And part of you loves the fact that this could happen to you, too! (“Thanks for the Flip camera, mom! I’ll use that on my trip!”) I loved Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. Faux realism mixed with Catholic secrecy AND a JGL look-alike priest?! Come on! I’m totally going to choose to see The Devil Inside over The Sitter at 12:30 in the afternoon!

I had a good time, but The Devil Inside just used me for my monies and didn’t offer a resolution. It seems to be the way with these types of films: a panicked climax where all heck goes loose and then BAM! Black screen. Title card explaining how nothing was figured out. Go to so-and-so website to learn more. Ugh, what a disappointment, and everyone else in the theater felt it, too. So we all hurried out into the sunshine and back into our lives, because we learned nothing and feel nothing about what we just watched.

Except that possessed people are great acrobats.

NiftyBA! Rating: * out of ****

Overheard by the older couple sitting behind me:

“Who is holding this camera?!”

“I need to buy myself a scarf.”

Pretty Girl with a Cute Scarf c/o media.theiapolis.com