Devil

Devil isn't hurting for tension, the question marks also pile up successfully, but it's still difficult to quiet that little voice in your head that says that everything could have been much better. The unappealing characters may be intentional; the disappointment with the climax definitely not. Suddenly, there are a surprising plethora of logical inconsistencies, and what was supposed to be a nerve-wracking thriller turns into only a mysterious one-off film. (12/12/2010)

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 (14/11/2010)

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. (01/08/2011)

Devil certainly does not lack a dark and mysterious atmosphere, which grows thicker and thicker throughout the film. On the other hand, however, I felt that much more could have been made of it. It could (or should) have been more gripping and intricate - then I might have considered a higher rating. I thought the five were well chosen and the misfits complemented each other well. All in all, a pretty good horror thriller that is shrouded in some mystery, but it's nothing memorable. (13/07/2011)

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. (27/11/2010)