Let’s go through all of the familiar horror film trailer elements that are present in this first full trailer for The Devil Inside: “actual” audio and video (check!), black and white footage of dead-eyed people screaming (check!), news footage that looks real (check!), a bunch of bewildered “experts” (check!), a deeper mystery (check!), religious underpinnings (check!), body horror (check!), creepy hospitals (check!), dark and dank basements (check!), and a real disdain for anyone who is a skilled contortionist (check!). What may have once served a sideshow diversion is now proof positive that someone is possessed by the devil, and horror tropes that may have once seemed fresh are now rung out for paint-by-the-numbers flicks.
The latest “found footage” (let’s just put “found fauxtage” into use right now, okay?) film from Paramount, The Devil Inside, focuses the very en vogue trend of exorcisms gone awry. It specifically focuses on a woman whose own mother is believed to have murdered three people during her own exorcism, and her subsequent obsession with other attempts to knock the devil out of people. Check out the trailer for The Devil Inside after the break. Those of you afraid of carnie folk may want to cover your eyes.
The Devil Inside opens on January 6, 2012. [Apple, Deadline South Hartford Heights]
