The imitation of the Devil
Film scare midway between “Scream” and “Saw”, “Devil” is an ersatz film by M. Night Shyamalan. More satisfying than foreshadowed the awful trailer, but not very successful so far. For fans of the genre only.
Five people are trapped in an elevator with the devil just one to one steal their soul. What not to finish in Paris blocks and stay alive until help arrives?
You have to have the sequence of ideas. Even if his career is in freefall, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan focuses on the future. He therefore decided to create “The Night Chronicles”: a series of feature films where fear is honored. Too busy working on “The Last Airbender”, which became a crushing defeat last summer, he told the first volume in director John E. Dowdle who had done a respectable job in creating “Quarantine”, the remake of “REC”.
Although the creator of “The Sixth Sense” acts solely as a producer while having collaborated with the basic idea, his leg is everywhere. The action takes place at the same place as his own tests (Philadelphia), the story focuses on characters and not horror, there is a final revelation that may surprise and music by Fernando Velazquez monkey at the Once his favorite composer James Newton Howard and his good friend Hans Zimmer (especially his recent participation in the dazzling “Inception”).
In the tradition of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, “Devil” offers suspense linear, not devoid of intelligence, but who would have deserved a slightly more sustained growth and a better conclusion. Everyone begins to suspect (in the way of “Scream”), the people gathered are all guilty of something (as in “Saw”) and there is a somewhat omniscient policeman who works behind the scenes to make light on this whole affair. Beginning at an old idea remains strong there is nothing more frightening than the dark, screenwriter Brian Nelson had fun creating a scenario that increases the false tracks without developing the characters correctly.
They remain in the elevator, insulting and trembling with fear, facing a real threat or not. Economy of means (everything happens when the lights are closed, so no need to think of special effects to create a monster) makes it an effective narrative, however, running around in circles over the lack of issues. Like the heroes of “Cube”, the actors together are not all credible, which is always a bit disappointing to see an unequal confrontation between good and bad actors. Some names fall happily into the first category, including Chris Messina cop determined, Logan Marshall -Green as a man who speaks little and Caroline Dhavernas that appears in a very minor role.
After its 80 minutes, “Devil” remains an imitation of a good movie. As if a clone was fun to reinterpret the style of M. Night Shyamalan, who is already on autopilot since “Signs”. The resulting product is intriguing as well, but ultimately a little whatever, for more on television and in movies.
