Devil (film) review

by Ben PerLee, September 20, 2010

It hasn’t been a good year for M. Night Shyamalan. And reasonably so, as his adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is widely considered one of the worst films of the year. Coupled this with his relatively weak The Happening and his poor Lady in the Water, audience and critical expectations from the man is anything but good.

Shyamalan did not direct or write Devil. Sure, the man came up with the idea for the story, and is the executive producer, but his touch on the film is much less than we would expect. Director John Erick Dowdle is thus able to make a film that is clearly a bit freer from the confines of Shyamalan’s inherent expectations. It’s a little gorier than most Shyamalan films, so it’s obvious that the film is in the hands of a more literal director. Unfortunately, while it’s not horrifically bad, it is still a mediocre film.

As the first film in what is now called The Night Chronicles, Devil is based upon the folkloric belief that the Devil will take the form of a human, bring together people deserving of going to hell, torments them for a spell, before finally killing them. These torments are always preceded by a suicide, which is the very first thing we see in the film after the disconcerting upside down presentation of Philadelphia, an effect that is creepy at once yet means nothing to the plot of the film.

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