Devil (2010) Review

There seems to be, as of late, a renewed interest in making films involving the devil. Whether people are being possessed by him, as shown in the less-said-about-it-the-better rubbish of The Devil Inside, or the devil disguising himself as a face in a crowd, which is the focus of the claustrophobic horror/thriller Devil. (On a side-note, could they not have come up with a catchier title? Like The Elevator To Hell, or One of These Things is Not Like the Other? Just saying.) Clocking in with a running time of 80 minutes, the action very rarely lets up once it gets going, but even then it doesn't really deliver on the frights.

With a story by M. Night Shyamalan, a man that can rarely make a decent movie these days, enhanced with a script written by Brian Nelson of 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy fame, you would be well within your rights to question whether the simple story of five people trapped in an elevator wherein one of them is the Devil incarnate could keep your attention. For the most part, it does. It doesn't break barriers or tread new ground but it has its merits and excels as one of those films you watch once, enjoy then go onto something new.

Character-wise, there really aren't any characters that you feel connected to, which does help the claustrophobic feel to the film. You only know a handful of facts about each person and that's no more than the characters trapped in the elevator know about each other. You have the token black guy in the form of temporary security guard Ben Larson (Bokeem Woodbine) with a history of violence and isn't fond of enclosed spaces. There's Vince McCormick (Geoffrey Arend) who is the prototypical douchebag that you're hoping gets an unholy beatdown by Beelzebub every time his smug face shows up in one of many close-ups. The other three characters that share the lift, portrayed by Bojana Novakovic (Sarah), Jenny O'Hara (Jane) and Logan Marshall-Green (Tony), really are just fodder as there is very little development at all.

Behind the camera, Devil is directed by John Erick Dowdle who wrote and directed Quarantine, the rather unnecessary remake of REC which is essentially remade shot-for-shot for people that can't read subtitles AND watch a movie at the same time. Given the basic plot and the confined space in which to film, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that interesting in terms of shots, although the opening of the film, an upside-down fly through Philly narrated by a Mexican security guard called Ramirez (Jacob Vargas), is one of the stand-out moments. What Dowdle does achieve, however, is a very claustrophobic feel to the film. He manages to make you feel like you're in the elevator with the characters and, through the use of blackouts to signify the evil entity that has come to Earth to mess with some people with rather petty crimes under their belts, make you feel unsettled. By the third or fourth time it has happened, however, you lose some of the impact but it is nonetheless really well done.

Yes, there are flaws. The script could be written a lot better, the lack of a recognisable face on-screen gives the film an Indie/B-movie vibe that doesn't really give the audience someone to root for. The acting could be stronger but it does kind of feel real enough to unsettle given the outlandish, only-in-a-movie-could-this-happen plot. The strength of this film, if one could describe it as such, is that it is definitely a film to watch with a partner or friends. You will be guessing which one of the five is the Devil, but given the lack of any identifiable and likeable characters, you'll probably not care what happens just as long as it is a bit bloody.