Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Ever feel like your kids are possessed by the Devil? Or other people’s kids? Well you’re in luck, as horror directors have cornered the market on such things, from The Exorcist to Insidious. But hey, why not take a worn-out fad like the POV shakycam “found footage” and mash them together in hopes that something good will come of it? Okay, in all honesty, maybe something cool will happen and the negatives will be cancelled out in favour of an interesting take on the whole genre? Maybe Infernal will be that film?

Sophia (Heather Adair) and Nathan (Andy Ostroff) have an autistic eight year old daughter named Imogene (Alyssa Koerner). After becoming increasingly disturbed by Imogene’s equally-disturbing behaviour, the couple confide in their family therapist (Lisagaye Tomlinson), who suggests that they begin monitoring Imogene’s behaviour via the use of camcorders. However, as they begin monitoring Imogene’s behaviour, strange and unexplained happenings begin occurring, increasing in severity to the point where things take a demonic turn.

As much as I’m becoming to loathe found footage films the more times that I see it, I will say that Infernal does offer some cool moments through the use of the trope, namely the demonic figures that come out of Imogene’s closet. While it’s not as creepy as it should be (the lighting of the creature ruins its scare factor), it’s a nice attempt. I also have to give credit to the actors for being able to work with what they were given. Andy Ostroff was able to play the conflicted, compassionate father effectively, even though the character’s writing and the script in general left something to be desired (more on that later). Also, writer/director/producer Bryan Coyne was able to find a child actor in Alyssa Koerner that displayed enough competence in the role that didn’t reinforce my views on child actors in mature films.

Okay, I said all the nice things I could about Infernal. It’s not much of a stretch that I’m trying to hide my disdain for spending over 100 minutes on this film. First off, the found footage gimmick in this film is stupid. It make little sense contextually with the rest of the film. For example, who films themselves packing boxes with the idea of them watching it later? Who films a doctor’s appointment? Why is it that the camera “coincidentally” captures the moments required by story and plot advancement? Oh, and the idea that these recordings later on will be used to help monitor Imogene’s behaviour? There’s no real point, as Nathan only views the footage once, and that’s not even after we have the demons poking around in Imogene’s room. The whole thing is staged and shoehorned into the film in an attempt to make things “interesting”. And no, having your characters “explain” why they are filming a moment which wouldn’t normally be filmed does not make things better.

Speaking of Nathan, the character ranks up there with Ethan Hawke’s recent dad characters in obliviousness and stupidity. The fact that he can’t decide whether to believe that Imogene is possessed or not is one thing, but the fact that it feels like his indecision is there just to eat up the runtime is another. Speaking of scenes thrown in for convenient story development, the scene involving Nathan teaching Imogene how to swing a hammer doesn’t scream of foreshadowing at all. The other characters aren’t much better off, either. Scenes such as a dinner party are constructed as such to remove any tension whatsoever by showing just one person talking in the shot, while the others are nowhere to be seen. Then there are other shots like Nathan and Sophia arguing with a priest that not only take up just a small portion of the entire frame, but end up leading nowhere since we never see characters like the priest again. It’s just garbage filmmaking with garbage writing.

Infernal pissed me off. Maybe I was in a bad mood. Maybe it was the fact that before this film, I had watched an excellent-yet-depressing documentary on H.R. Giger (which was far more entertaining than this film). I don’t know, all I just wanted was to have a good time. Instead, what I got with Infernal was a boring 100 minutes with a worn-out gimmick hammered into it in order to try and cover up crappy writing and amateur filmmaking. While I know that the actors involved tried to do what they could, you can’t salvage characters that are so stupidly written. Go rewatch Paranormal Activity if you want to see something marginally better, or watch The Omen again or any other child possession film that’s actually worth your time.