In this case, that young person is Carson (Lara Vosburgh) a once-bright teenager who inexplicably begins using hard drugs after her parents Steve (Christopher Parker) and Beth (Colleen McGrann) enroll here in a high-end Catholic high school. Her behavior becomes so self-destructive that she eventually ends up in a rehab clinic. More disruptive behavior follows, along with standard possession tropes like vomiting, speaking in tongues, etc., past the point where it becomes ludicrous for anyone observing Carson to deny that there’s more going on with her than an especially tough detox. The twist is that all this is being filmed for a reality TV show that is loosely based on the real-life series Intervention — of which Inner Demons director Seth Grossman helmed eight episodes, so he knows something about that series worked. The series’ crew (including a would-be boyfriend for Carson played by Morgan McClellan) more or less orchestrates Carson’s move to rehab and a lot of the movie is seen through their cameras, interspersed with the surveillance gear that seems to cover every inch of the rehab center. Since the center’s cameras pick up even more bizarre images — including the movie’s one effective scare — you have to wonder if anyone is watching this stuff and, if so, why they’re not reporting it ASAP. But that’s not unexpected for a film like this, which wants to trade on the “found footage” gimmick (which is also good for saving a few bucks) but doesn’t really stay within the lines. The TV show footage and the surveillance tapes, for example, are all edited together yet build to a climax that arguably leaves no one to assemble the material, let alone include the final sequence. That laziness, unfortunately, extends to the entire film and especially its script (by Glenn Gers), which leaves no cliché unexplored as Carson is put through the predictable paces of her possession. Grossman generates almost no suspense, save for one or two of those static surveillance shots, since we know almost right from the beginning that Carson is under a demonic influence. How do we know? Among other things, the camera image becomes unstable. Shocking! Inner Demons is out now on VOD and in limited theatrical release. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
