Directed by:
John Erick DowdleScreenplay:
Brian NelsonCinematography:
Tak FujimotoComposer:
Fernando VelázquezCast:
Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O'Hara, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend, Jacob Vargas, Matt Craven, Caroline Dhavernas (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Five strangers in Philadelphia begin their day with the most commonplace of routines. They walk into an office tower and enter an elevator. As they convene into this single place, they are forced to share a confined space with strangers. Nobody acknowledges anybody else. They’ll only be together for a few moments. But what appears to be a random occurrence is anything but coincidental when the car becomes stuck. Fate has come calling. Today these strangers will have their secrets revealed, and face a reckoning for their transgressions.
Slowly, methodically, their situation turns from one of mere annoyance to sheer helplessness and abject terror. Terrible things begin to happen to each of them, one by one, and suspicion shifts as to who among the five is making it all happen…until they learn the unspeakable truth: one of them is the Devil himself. As those on the outside try in vain to free them, the remaining passengers realize that the only way to survive is to confront the very wickedness that has led them to today. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (10)
Precise direction and a really fast script with lots of ideas and flashy stunts that elevate this horror B-movie above many of its clichéd ghostly brethren. The atmosphere is not very chilling, but it’s enough to keep your attention, and the actors are decent and convincing to the extent of their possibilities. And the final twist, which I was increasingly curious about as time went on and I found out more and more, was delivered quite sensibly and did not disrupt the carefully constructed story based on one simple central idea, which, by the way, was so well delivered that it provided me with an (un)enjoyable and unrelenting spectacle.
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Devil certainly isn't a catastrophe and can even be considered decently above-average within its genre. However, it is important to emphasize that horror has long been a genre of popular entertainment, which is largely composed of ultra-low quality video productions and semi-amateur attempts by various hopefuls, so the average is somewhere else in terms of filmmaking quality compared to other genres. The basic plot works reasonably well - if, of course, we generously overlook the crucial error in logic on which the story is built, as well as a few smaller logical leaps. But if we were so narrow-minded about every horror film, what would be left of the genre in the end? Thanks to the sounds and editing, the film occasionally achieves a decent atmosphere. However, it suffers from the fact that it takes a different direction than the viewer expects. It creates the idea of an intimate psycho-horror, where in the claustrophobic atmosphere of an elevator cabin with no escape, passengers gradually realize that one of them is not who they claim to be, leading to paranoid mutual accusations and increasingly ominous signs of an inevitable end. However, the film develops differently and sets up a different, less effective, game. If the devil came into the world because of this kind of event, then it is a disgraceful waste of his talent, because a similar effect could be achieved by a demon of the third category somewhere from the depths of hell's basement. Overall, it is a B-movie with average acting performances and unused potential. Nevertheless, I have no problem giving it three stars. Overall impression: 55%.
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Devil is a horror B-movie with cheap actors and numerous lapses in logic. But the technical aspect is professional, with great opening credits, a solid atmosphere and a more or less functional point. Had it not been for better older horror B-movies like Cube and Saw that got to me and prompted me to give them “only” four stars, I might have gone with four stars even in the case of Devil.
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It takes seventy minutes carefully building a disconcerting atmosphere, relationships and tension between characters, only for all this to fizzle out, instead of reaching a climax and hitting hard with a message. Too bad, because it’s the ending/punchline of these genre snacks that separates the wheat from the chaff; leaving just the bold deeds of those who we can remember.
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I feel sorry for John Erick Dowdle, nobody knows the excellent The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Quarantine is the most pointless film of the decade and Devil is killed by Shyamalan’s creative crisis, but he knows the craft and one day he’ll make a proper genre gem, at least I hope. But well, let’s talk about Devil. The opening upside down flight over a city with some great music is perfect to whet the appetite, but the rest of the film is a five out of ten. Technically it’s fine, but the five victims, the detective, the security guards – everyone, basically – are incredibly unlikeable, behave in an unexplained fashion and sometimes utter words that I was unable to understand. If we add to this the fact that the performances are rather poor, the conclusion we reach is that this film simply cannot work. And that’s exactly the case, with the exception of the moments when nobody speaks. The twist does answer the question of who’s the devil, but why the devil did what he did remains a mystery. I’d rather ignore the moral of the closing scene, otherwise I would have to rate it even lower, which I don’t want to do because of the premise, the technical quality, a couple of chilling moments, and the music. 6/10
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Gallery (56)
Photo © Universal Pictures
![Devil - Lobby Cards](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/160/712/160712131_6793cd.jpg)
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