If it’s horror, it has to be found-footage style. Be it the Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity series, The Last Exorcism (2010), Annaliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011), or the sci-fi Apollo 18, they all had one thing in common: The filmmaking genre. No surprises then that the latest horror thriller — director William Brent Bell’s The Devil Inside — follows the same format.

Scripted by writing partners Bell and Mathew Peterman (Sparkle & Charm, Stay Alive), The Devil Inside stars Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Suzan Crowley, Evan Helmuth, Bonnie Morgan and Preston James Hillier. Produced by Morris Paulson and Peterman, the film is distributed by Paramount Insurge — a Paramount Pictures’ label created after Paranormal Activity to acquire and produce “micro-budget” films.

How different can a horror film get, that too if it is following a plot following of an exorcism? It was in 1989 that responders at 911 received a call from Maria Rossi (Crowley), confessing that she had killed three people. So all her life, Isabella (Andrade) has believed that her mother was a murderer, that she killed three people because she was clinically insane. Twenty years later, her life turns upside down when she learns that the murders took place during an exorcism.

Keen to know the truth about what happened that night, she sets out on a personal mission. Is Isabella going to be surprised/shocked by what she learns? She travels to Centrino Hospital for the criminally insane in Italy to figure out whether her mother, who has been locked up, is clinically insane or possessed. She goes on to join hands with two young exorcists (Quarterman and Helmuth) — together they plan to use unusual methods that merge science and religion to exorcise Maria. What began as an exorcism turns into something they couldn’t have imagined — for Maria is possessed by four demons. As the tagline goes: “Many have been possessed by one; only one has been possessed by many.” And while Isabella attempts to discover what really happened to her mother, the exorcism goes horribly wrong. What happened is captured on film by the crew helping Isabella.

Like most found-footage films, there are several familiar scenes — a possessed woman thrashing in the throes of pain, bodies contorting in an unnatural manner, a man of the cloth trying to rein in the devil, dark shots, sudden sounds, forbidding close-ups and creepy locales. All in all, a series of unsettling visuals put together. Do they make for a distinctly disturbing film? In moments and patches, but don’t be surpr­ised if you experience a sense of déjà vu — we’ve all been there, seen that! Having said that, Crowley — the scary eyed, self-mutilating Maria — plays the pa­rt of a person demonically possessed to perfection. The locations, including Bucharest, Romania, Ro­me, Lazio, and Vatican City, add to the old-world feel.

Horror fans who don’t like this film, needn’t despair. There’s lots coming their way in the coming months: Underworld: Awakening, The Woman in Black, The Cabin in the Woods, House at the End of the Street, Dark Shadows and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wait and watch!