A much better film than it will be definately be given credit for, which is a shame, considering today's horror films usually focus on being completely pointless and filled with cliches. But if this is the start of the series, then bring on more of The Night Chronicles, because Devil is a thrill and the best thing Night's name has been on in years. I believe that this film stopped the clock on Night's career suicide and it will definately buy him some more time to be able to gain the public's trust again so that he can start writing and directing again. But for now he should stick with coming up with the fundamental ideas and let others take the reigns.
With that being said let's get to the meat and potatoes of this review shall we?
Devil is about five people trapped in an elevator and everytime the lights go out someone ends up dead. While security and police watch on the elevator camera monitor everything that is going on secrets are revealed and we are left with trying to fill in the blanks such as Who are these people? Why are they there? and What does the devil want with them?
It is a good little mystery and I believe that if Shyamalan had taken his concept and written the script himself we probably would have ended up with a movie that was self indulgent and completely trying to hard. But that did not happen. This script was polished into a good script that serves its purpose by being entertaining and suspenseful. Now I am not saying that this is the best horror script ever, but you have to take note that at least 75% of this movie takes place in a small elevator and it never got boring. This movie has a lot of dialogue pushing along the plot points. Every time something supernatural happens it is explained by the typical "Shyamalan character" that knows a lot about some the supernatural. With that being said the characters and their reactions to their situation are convincing which made the movie believable.
The people the devil is trying to claim in the crapped elevator are the annoying salesman (Geoffrey Arend), black security guard (Bokeem Woodbine), young woman (Bojana Novakovic), old lady (Jenny O’Hara), and a mechanic (Logan Marshall-Greene). All of them have committed sins that they have never payed the price for until the day they enter this elevator with the devil. So you are left with trying to figure out which of these characters is the devil himself. As the bodies drop your options start to dwindle and just when you think you have it all figured out (You guessed it) TWIST!
Every time those elevator lights flickered you felt a deep sense of supense and dread because you knew that someone was about to pay the reaper. It was amazing the crazy things I imagined on my own whenever the lights went out in that elevator because you would hear these insane sounds that honestly made me cringe just a tadbit because most of the work is being done with your own twisted mind. So when you received that payoff when the lights came on and you saw what had happened it was rewarding. Now this movie was not perfect and it is not the best horror movie you are going to see but considering this is a movie with Shyamalan's name attached to it and it isn't TERRIBLE means it is worth a viewing. It was much better than I thought it was going to be and it is actually worth it to see this one in theatres.
This movie gets 3.5 out of 5 Canaries
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