While this religio-horror effort does contain some nice scares, and a memorably unnerving turn from Crowley, The Devil Inside's biggest shock arrives when it abruptly ends - just as it hits its stride. The result is a found-footage movie whose third act remains missing.

Despite the palpable air of deja vu that hangs over it like a light fog, The Devil Inside generates a fair amount of suspense during sizable swaths of its familiar but serviceable exorcism-centric scenario.

All hell breaks loose and it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

The mother/daughter drama should have played a bigger part in this film as the 87-minute runtime passes quickly and leaves us feeling utterly short-changed.

The reality of The Devil Inside is that it's a half-hearted patchwork of ideas blatantly lifted from better films, with characters who have to act increasingly foolish in order to allow the action to go forward and an ending so anticlimactic and abrupt that the audience at the screening I attended erupted in enraged boos as the credits rolled.