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Devil Inside Me

January 7, 2012 by · Comments Off on Devil Inside Me 

Devil Inside MeDevil Inside Me, Whenever I see a cheapy horror film topping the charts, I’m always surprised. It shouldn’t because of its regularity, but I always have the same reaction. “The Devil Inside” is another one that did that to me. I’ve never of the film until Binh posted an entry about it.

The film is about a daughter who tries to get rid of a bunch of demons who have possessed her mother. Yep, demon with an “s.” We’ve had many films about demonic possessions, but the number of demons doing the possessing tend to be limited to just one. This time, it’s four. And they’re gonna throw some science into the pot, you know, just to make it a little bit different from the other films in the genre.

“The Devil Inside” is the only film opening wide this week. I didn’t think it had a chance to push Tom Cruise and “Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol” out of their two-week reign at the top. But according to Deadline.com, the horror film, which was made for just $1M, grossed twelve times that on Friday. Its $12M haul includes $2M from midnight screenings on Thursday. I didn’t think there was enough demand to warrant midnight screenings, but apparently lots of horror films couldn’t wait to see it. Or it could just be that watching it at midnight makes the whole experience that much more frightening.

Horror films tend to be frontloaded, so even though it topped the charts on Friday, it could still lose out to “Mission Impossible 4” over the three day weekend. Lets see what percentage Friday’s gross represents for the entire weekend for some horror films:

The Exorcism of Emily Rose 38% ($11.3M / $30M)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – 38% ($10.6M / $28M)
When a Stranger Calls – 43% ($9M / $21.6M)
Paranormal Activity 3 – 50% ($26.3M / $52.6M)

It ranges from about 38-50% in our small sample of supernational horror films. “The Devil Inside” will probably gross between $24-32M over the weekend. I think it’ll end up in the lower end of the spectrum. Even at $24M, I think it’s still good enough to take the top spot from “Mission Impossible 4.”

Like most horror films nowadays, “The Devil Inside” wasn’t screened for critics. When critics finally saw it, they gave it hell. Sorry. The indie horror film scored an 8% on the Tomatometer. Ouch.

Apparently, from Binh’s entry, people booed at the end of a free screening too.

Still, since it only cost $1M, it’s already way in the black after just one day. Expect sequels.

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