Elevator Music Anyone? - "Devil" Review

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Ult_Sm86
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Elevator Music Anyone? - "Devil" Review

Post by Ult_Sm86 »

Elevator Music, Anyone?
( * * 2 Stars)

“Devil” is undoubtedly one of the most abhorrently predictable films that M. Night Shyamalan has released in years. Not only is it predictable however; it is insulting. The overlying theme of the movie is simply that if you’re an atheist, you’re just not trying hard enough to believe. To put it frankly, it takes a one hour and fifty minute piss on Nietzsche, Carl Sagan, Stephen Roberts, and George Carlin alike.


The movie is set in Philadelphia (as majority of the Shyamalan films are), and opens with 5 complete strangers all getting into an elevator that, while en route to various floors up above, stops. This elevator happens to be elevator 6. From here on in, it’s a lot of panic, doubt, dishonesty, and general mayhem. Even though the suicide at the beginning of the film is sort of, kind of, related to the rest of the film (unfortunately you’ll have to see it to understand what I mean, I can’t reveal the entire movie), it is pretty much clear that this was just a more “believable” way to bring a Philly Detective to the scene and have him witness the events on the security camera.


Throughout this teeth-grinder you are willing to sit back and try to figure out who exactly the devil in the elevator really is. It becomes pretty obvious, but for those who might not pick up on it, it’s not exactly the worst surprise done in film history. (See Secret Window). To be fair, Shyamalan is pretty productive with his story usage and the limited time to tell it. It’s not the worst written film he’s ever done (see The Happening), but it certainly isn’t his best. His dialogue within the elevator is real, gritty, and grasps the audience, even if you are bored. The chance and hope of being actually surprised looms until the final moment (where he sticks his big opinionated finger in your face once again). Conversely, the dialogue outside the elevator is flat, unoriginal, boring, and worst of all, it’s offensive to the non-believing audience.


Some may argue that M. Night Shyamalan was trying too hard to do a film that “all audiences” of the horror and thriller genres would enjoy. This case is made by having the heavy religious overtones, the slasher-like gore within the elevator, and the rising climax action of classic Hitchcock films where you never actually see the villain until the end. But Devil is written as a piece of child’s play. Once again, Shyamalan uses his classic shtick of having a passed-down heritage story, told within a culture or family, that lays out the entire blue print of the film. You can expect one of two things to happen, either it follows the blue print to the “T”, or the characters overcome it. There’s no real surprise ending throughout most of his last few films, Devil included. The worst of it all is that M. spends all his time making you feel mixed about whether you want to believe or not, but unlike other devil-dabbling films (The Omen, The Exorcist, or even most recently, The Last Exorcism), he doesn’t let the audience decide if there really is a devil, or a hell, or a price to pay for your sins or not. It quite frankly is a massive dump on the intellect of the general audience. The most upsetting part is that M. often uses one character to be his voice in the film (if he doesn’t insert himself—which thankfully this time he did not) and throughout this film, it seems that the Latino security guard is infact the “voice of reason” throughout the film, when in fact he comes off as a religious, fanatical, zealot, accusing non-believers of “actually believing, but not willing to say so”.


The acting isn’t bad (‘nor is it phenomenal), and the camera angles—as with all of Shyamalan’s pictures—are unique and pretty. But even though the budget was low, the cast was almost entirely no-names, and the general idea was kept very under wraps, the film still fails to deliver any type of massive impact in the genre, or in the theaters. I predict that if this is what the rest of the Night Chronicles are going to be like, we may only have one more to put up with, rather than 3.
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