Normally one doesn’t associate January with horror, but within the past few years we’ve been seeing more and more of those genre films filling up the first month of the year. It’s happening all over again with “The Devil Inside,” the new horror-thriller from Paramount Insurge that’s directed by William Brent Bell.
The story, written by Brent Bell and Matthew Peterson, centers on Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), a young girl who files all the way to Rome in order to figure out if her mother Maria (Suzan Crowley) is mentally ill or is possessed by a demon. She enlists the help of two priests (Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth) as they embark on a terrifying journey as they get more than they can chew.
We were delighted to get a few minutes to talk with director William Brent Bell, screenwriter Matthew Peterson and producer Morris Paulson about creating the movie, working in the independent system and if they believe that demonic possessions can happen.
ShockYa: First off congratulations on the release. Since this is another exorcism film, what movies of that same horror vein inspired you when it came to creating “The Devil Inside”?
William Brent Bell: Well I think my favorite exorcism film would be “The Exorcist,” obviously, but more than anything I think we were inspired by the priests and the exorcisms that we researched along with the interviews. What we tried to do was to make it as realistic as possible like we did have an exorcism on film.
Matthew Peterson: We wanted the film to follow this documentary kind of format. We watched a lot of True Crime, trying to make our film feel as authentic as possible in that space.
ShockYa: Yes, I definitely got a feel for that. You mentioned that you interviewed a couple of priests about this topic, was there any memorable stories or pieces of them that you ended up putting into the film?
Matthew Peterson: I’ll tell you that to some degree we didn’t — we didn’t sit around, rack our brain and say wow, “The Exorcist” they did this, and then they did this, etc etc. It wasn’t necessarily how can we do this better. It was more like this priest told us this, and he clearly saw the face of the devil, so it’s like how can we authentically show that without looking like a big Hollywood movie. We just tried our best to bring to life those elements.
ShockYa: Is that why you aimed more for the documentary style of filmmaking rather than making it feel more like a typical found-footage kind of piece?
William Brent Bell: No, but the original script was more of a narrative, traditional Hollywood-ish movie. We just had a lot of trouble getting the movie going when the Writers Guild Strike happened, we were just frustrated with it all. Then Morris (Paulson) financed the film but wanted to do it more in the documentary style. At the time, except for “Cloverfield,” that style wasn’t really being done much at all. We had figured out the story, redid the whole script in a way that we could do a documentary version of it, and we really fell in love with it. We really love this format on many levels and we just went out and made it totally outside of the studio system. We didn’t really tell anybody, we didn’t really ask anybody permission or tell anybody what we were doing as far as our managers and agents. We didn’t want Hollywood people in the movie. We just wanted to make the film ourselves and wait to show it until we were absolutely proud of the finished cut, leading us to where we are now.
ShockYa: The whole style of it definitely did get audience members more engrossed in the overall story because it comes off a bit more realistic than what we’re used to. This question is for Morris (Paulson), what other elements about the story did you love? And do you guys actually believe in demonic possession?
Morris Paulson: Those are a couple of good questions. What we liked about the story was, actually, the search for authenticity, the real feeling of realism in the movie. I think that’s something that engages the audience, sucks them in and takes them to a place that I’m used to going to when I go to the theater. They’re used to watching a story while with our movie, hopefully, they’re involved in the story, and that’s what we were searching for.
In terms of believing in demonic possession, that’s a question that remains open. After doing all the research we did, it’s hard to pin it down. Hopefully the movie shines a light on that debate a little bit. Hopefully people can understand a little more about what an exorcist is up to, and they can understand a little more about when it can be a mental illness. You can really have a reason to go out with this material or not and you have more tools possibly after watching the movie to have that debate.
ShockYa: I have to say that I really love Suzan Crowley’s performance as Maria Rossi. How did the casting process go? Because like you said earlier, you weren’t looking for any big names.
William Brent Bell: For the audience to get that involved with the film we felt that if they recognized anybody then they weren’t invested in it. That’s what great about casting a film like this, you aren’t relying or worrying about people for their name value, you’re just trying to be great actors and that’s all we tried to do. It makes the process a lot of fun and liberating. It’s also great because everyone involved with the film, because we’re such a small movie and nobody’s making a lot of money, they’re just invested in this for the right reasons. We’re just there to make a great film and that makes the process fun and enjoyable.
ShockYa: What do you hope that audiences will be talking about once they get out of seeing your movie?
William Brent Bell: I hope it leaves a good taste in their mouth, something they can think about when they go home and try to get to sleep at night. I think we hope that there are elements in the movie that are really disturbing, and I hope they like it. We think all the actors did a fantastic job, we were really happy with the way that it turned out. With the movie we made a couple of bold choices, and they aren’t controversial but the fun is to try and do something different. We want them to walk away thinking that they’ve never seen that kind of an exorcism film or a movie quite like that.
“The Devil Inside” is out in theaters nationwide.