As you hear the doors to the screen crash open you scramble madly along the row of seats, head ducked down in a vain attempt to remain unseen despite your clattering progress.
At the far end of the row, on the wall, about half way between the back of the room and the screen itself a dimly flickering ‘EXIT’ sign can be seen. Stumbling but not daring to look back you push your way through the door beneath the sign.
On the other side of the door is a bare concrete corridor, to the right it curves around a bed, to the left another ‘EXIT’ sign glows at the end of the corridor, you turn left.
Reaching the next door you’re momentarily stunned as the door remains firmly closed as you crash into it. Gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of you, you look more closely at the door and see that somebody has removed the push bar to open it!
No time for that now, you turn to run back the other way when The Mummy lumbers its way through the door from the cinema screen, blocking your exit and turning towards you, relentless.
Desperately you look around you, searching for a way out of this. Your eyes fall on a small metal hatch with a red push button to one side and a long handle along the bottom. Grasping it you pull upwards revealing a bare metal box, a dumb waiter, but what a strange place for…no time!
You scramble inside, slam your palm against the red button and pull the door closed as best you can.
Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the box begins to descend. Just above you there is a crashing, wrenching sound, a snapping sound and then suddenly…you are falling.
Now here’s a film which I had seen fairly recently, well in the last couple of years at least, but honestly couldn’t remember a huge amount about. That isn’t usually a good sign, though it does at least mean it can’t have been so bad that it stuck with me. More likely it was just…ok.
So…was it? Well let’s find out, this time I’m reviewing the 2010 film, Devil.
I’m going to start by saying that forgetting much of the film was a positive. This is mystery film of sorts, written by M. Night Shyamalan of The Sixth Sense and The Village fame, among others. He doesn’t direct this time though, that job was performed by John Erick Dowdle who also directed As Above, So Below, a film I often recommend to people.
A mystery film is always going to suffer from knowing the result, though there is of course some enjoyment to be had from spotting any hints the filmmakers may have dropped that you didn’t notice the first time through.
Now though I said I’d forgotten much of the film, things did come back to me when I saw certain characters or events so I didn’t get the true first watch experience, more a sense of nostalgia almost. It certainly wasn’t the chore to watch that I had been fearing.
Not least because of its tight 80 minute runtime. Now I love a long, slow burn, but many films, especially these days, are full of bloat, where 2 hours is the minimum the audience expects. This is less the case with horror but even so this film is short, and here that’s a good thing. It never feels like it’s stringing you along or bogging you down with unnecessary scenes.
The film focuses on 5 strangers who become trapped in an elevator in a high-rise building. We spend our time mostly between 3 groups, the elevator passengers, the security/maintenance staff, and the police. The lift becoming stuck is only the beginning, soon things take a much darker tone and the film becomes a supernatural whodunit mystery.
As with many of these reviews that’s all I can really say regarding the plot, especially with a film like this.
Now, despite my love for Horror, I think this film would actually have been stronger as a straight up thriller, or at the very least kept grounded in realism. It goes so far over to being just that, that the supernatural aspects feel tacked on. I was actually getting Speed vibes from the film and found myself wanting more of that rather than the horror parts.
The acting in the film is decent with nothing really standing out either in a good or a bad way. I mean as this is supposed to be a group of fairly regular people I guess the fact they don’t stand out is a good thing, so OK, I’ll say the acting is good in that it feels like a fairly realistic portrayal of people put into this kind of situation.
Is it scary? No, it’s not that kind of film, it certainly has you on edge at times and there’s at least one well timed cut which made me jump. There’s some gore and some deaths but nothing that feels over and above what you’d see in many thrillers.
I have to say I’ve really struggled to say much about this film. That’s maybe a result of its limited premise. I don’t mean that in a bad way, the film is built around suspense and is claustrophobic both in location and how it makes you feel. I mentioned at the start that I had forgotten what happened in the film, which was good for my re-watch but also goes to show that it’s not a very memorable experience, this film is…okay. I’m going to award it 3 Apple Trees out of 5. If you fancy a bit of a mystery thriller that still falls under the horror umbrella then you may enjoy this. It’s not going to blow your mind but it’s fairly entertaining.
**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**
Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.
So the premise of this film, reflected in the title, is that one of people in the elevator is The Devil. We don’t really find this out till much later in the film and if I’m honest the film cheats a bit and makes it almost impossible for us to guess which of the people it is, well at least which of them is picking off the other characters. It cheats because the older lady, who it turns out is The Devil, dies about half way through the film! Now I call that cheating, I like to feel like I have a chance to work it out…ok so maybe I’ve praised that in another film, but it depends how it’s done, and here it gives you no chance.
I thought the little reveal near the end that one of the guys in the lift was responsible for the hit and run deaths of the main cop’s wife and kid was a nice touch…well not nice, but you know what I mean. Ultimately it doesn’t really make a difference to the story, other than something for him to confess to The Devil but it just helps tie things together.
As we find out that most of the people who die in this film are bad people we don’t really feel all that sorry for them. The Exceptions are Dwight and Lustig who are just poor tower employees who end up being collateral in The Devil’s game. One falls to his death, the other is electrocuted and neither of them deserve their fate.
One more thing…The Devil…really? You couldn’t pick a more extreme antagonist for such a relatively minor event. Also, again, as with demonic presences in most films, we don’t need them to have a physical manifestation. At least here it wasn’t an actual depiction of The Devil, just a possessed character…sort of…she isn’t actually there. But yes, maybe go with a malevolent ghost or something, The Devil is bit extreme.
Oh, this is my floor, bye for now…
Summerisle 