Infernal: The Possession Film That Left Fans Questioning What Was Real
When Infernal was released in 2015, most people anticipated a typical horror film centered around an exorcism — a child getting possessed, a family breaking apart, a couple of demonic scares. Yet, what they received was something far stranger and elusive. Directed by Bryan Coyne, the film blurred the boundaries of faith, madness, and obsession, constructing a narrative that seemed purposely unfinished. This was exactly the reason why it turned into a cult obsession. A long time after the credits rolled, fans were not discussing who survived; they were engaged in a heated debate on whether anything paranormal even occurred.
A Family on Camera, a Devil in the Details
The story begins simply enough: a young couple, Nathan (Andy Ostroff) and Sophia (Heather Adair), move into a new house with their young daughter, Imogene (Alyssa Koerner) and decide to document the life with home video cameras. The choice to film their life with a home video camera adds an unsettling layer of voyeurism right from the start.
Imogene tends to be quiet, observant, and strangely distant. Over time, she starts to draw more and more concerning pictures and engages in conversation with an invisible companion. Her parents see this as part of the adjustment, but when strange sounds and flickering lights begin to invade their nights, Nathan and Sophia come to understand that something much worse is happening.
What follows is a creeping, excruciating descent into paranoia. As the cameras keep rolling, the audience, a participant in this descent, is forced to contend with the growing disquiet of the unseen — the suggestive silhouettes, the odd sounds, and something crouching just out of sight. Infernal, is careful not to include expected elements of the horror genre. It does not jump at the audience, waiting, instead, to breathe down their necks.
Then comes the most effective twist. By the time the film reaches its chaotic finish — an effective collage of frantic scenes, screams, and strobe flashes — the question is no longer who the possessed demon is, but whether the family has been filming their disintegrating minds.
Theories That Refused to Die
Upon its release, Infernal became a centerpiece of speculation. Horror forums operated with competing theories, many claiming the possession narrative was a smokescreen. The most popular idea was what fans dubbed “The Surveillance Theory.” According to this reasoning, the cameras weren’t just recording — they were being monitored. The strange sounds and glimpses weren’t supernatural but suggested the family was being watched by some unseen entity, and the family was in some sort of a surveillance bubble of a sadistic voyeur.
Another theory — “The Grief Loop” — suggested that Nathan and Sophia were dead all along and what we see are their spirits replaying their trauma on an endless loop, with Imogene acting a sort of psychic medium. The theory had its clues in the repeated visual motifs of mirrors and reflections, and how sound distortions were present right before something significant occurred.
When questioned regarding these interpretations, Director Bryan Coyne smiled yet confirmed none. He highlighted that “people see what they want to see” in an interview with Rue Morgue Magazine. “I never wanted to tell audiences what to believe. The horror should come from not knowing,” he added.
Even the cast got drawn into the debate. Heather Adair admitted in one interview that she didn’t receive a complete script at first — Coyne only gave her sections related to her character’s emotional arc. “I didn’t know what was real for Sophia,” she said. “Bryan wanted genuine confusion on camera, and he got it. Half the time, I didn’t know if the sounds we were reacting to were planned or just the house creaking.”
Alternate Endings That Could Have Changed Everything
Few fans know that Infernal actually had multiple endings during production. Imogene’s fate was left entirely unseen in the original script. The film ended with the house empty, the cameras still recording as faint laughter echoed in the background. Another version had Nathan discovering that his own footage was being mirrored back at him, implying the presence of another, unseen filmmaker.
Bryan Coyne ultimately implemented the version we see: fragmented, unresolved, and aggressively ambiguous, because, in his words, “answers kill fear.” Still, alternate versions are said to exist in the film’s early cuts shown only to test audiences. One insider stated that the closed-off sequences showed a character with a mask that had Imogene’s face, a disquieting vision that was purportedly “too literal” for the tone in the end. The ambiguity worked to the film’s advantage. Fans continue to analyze the ending, searching for subliminal imagery, whispered sounds in the mix, or anything else that might provide a clue. Some listeners claim to hear a lullaby meant to soothe a child being played backward. Others insist that the final shot hides a cross in the wallpaper that is turned upside down. This obsession, whether real or imagined, became intertwined with Infernal’s identity.
The Making of Fear
The production of Infernal was anything but calm. This film was shot over just three weeks in a real home in Los Angeles, a residence with creaking floors and dilapidated wiring. Coyne confessed to capturing some unintentional background sound design simply because there was a recording of a whisper. “Sometimes we’d review footage and hear whispers we didn’t record.” He says coyly, “The house had its own personality.”
Due to a limited budget, the team took advantage of the natural light and ambient materials in the house. Coyne decided to keep an unplanned light fixture Visuals that capture a flickering bulb, a demonic feature of the strip light. Set in the role of the cinematographer, Eric Leach dubbed this light their “demon”. “Every time it flickered, we’d roll with it. The unpredictability added to the mood,” he explains.