A landmark moment… in the worst possible way.
Endings are tough.
Sure, you can entice folk into your movie with a great set-up, but can you pay it off well? Not every movie can.
And one movie that certainly could not was The Devil Inside, first released in cinemas on 6 January 2012.
At the time, January was considered a bit of a dumping ground for movies that distributors knew wouldn’t do well, and has historically been when bad horror movies get shoved out on to the big screen, when viewers are in a post-Christmas lull and are willing to watch just about anything.
That worked out to Paramount’s advantage, as The Devil Inside – with a production budget of a little under $1 million – had an opening weekend of $33 million, the third biggest January opening weekend of all time at the time.
It would go on to bank $101.8 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable movies of the year.
It would also become one of only 22 movies since 1984, when the CinemaScore ranking system (which is compiled by the audience reaction) was created, to receive an ‘F’ from the audience. And that comes down almost entirely to the movie’s ending.
Clip via Paramount Pictures
Disregarding the ending for a moment, the rest of the movie is still significantly bad. A found-footage horror movie that was jumping on the bandwagon made popular by The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, it tells the story of a documentary crew who get involved in a series of exorcisms, some of which may be directly tied to a series of murders involving the Vatican.
It is shonky, low-grade pulp, existing for no reason other than to have a spooky character suddenly scream directly into the camera lens every few minutes in an attempt to send the audience’s popcorn flying.
By itself, it could have become just another forgettably bad scary movie, but then the ending happens.
Jumping right to the end (spoiler warning), two of the main characters are hurriedly driving a demonically possessed woman to an exorcist, when the woman suddenly causes the car to violently crash. We get a glimpse inside the wreckage: the driver appears to be dead, the woman is missing… and suddenly the screen cuts to black.
Text appears on the screen, stating that the mystery behind the murders is still being investigated. And then a second message appears, directing the audience to a website titled The Rossi Files for more information on the investigation. To say audiences reacted poorly was an understatement:
Clip via Luis Deleon
At the time, once they’d sufficiently calmed down, viewers could indeed go to The Rossi Files online and do some clicking on there, but it didn’t really amount to much more than more publicity for a movie audiences will have already watched.
Adding insult to injury, The Rossi Files website has been defunct since 2013, so anyone watching at home in the years since then won’t be able to access it. (Although, if you really want to, an archived version of The Rossi Files website can be found here.)
It speaks volumes that despite the movie’s massive commercial success, there has been no sign of The Devil Inside 2.
Should you really, really want to, The Devil Inside is available to rent right now on Google Play, Apple TV and the Sky Store.
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