Devil - DVD Review

"Devil's" an impressive low-budget horror outing, a scary little morality play that delivers tension without going overboard with blood and guts. M. Night Shyamalan drafted the story as part one of an urban horror trilogy, and Brian Nelson did a fine job expanding it into a full-length screenplay (albeit a short one - Devil clocks in at a scant 80 minutes). No stars, but the cast does a mighty swell job and they're familiar enough to elicit shouts of "Hey! I know that guy!" every so often. Director John Erick Dowdle's work last showed up in the cineplex with "Quarantine," a good movie, but not a really essential one, considering that it was essentially a shot-by-shot remake of "Rec." "Devil's" a better film, one that's well worth a look.

"Devil" centers around five people sharing an elevator that gets stuck between floors in a Philadelphia office building. It's bad enough when you're sharing an elevator with an jerk, perish the thought that you end up trapped with Mr. Personality for a couple of hours. Multiply that nightmare by five, because every member of the quintet in the ill-fated car is a piece of work. Obnoxious, disagreeable and each one personality-challenged enough to merit a good smack aside the head. But enough about their good qualities. Every one of them has a mausoleum's worth of skeletons in their closet and you soon get the feeling that they're sharing that car for a reason...

Not everyone in "Devil" is a total louse. Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is pretty darned agreeable. He's had a bad spell of late - he's counting the minutes until his third full month of sobriety and there was some heavy stuff that set him to drinking in the first place - but he seems to be coming along nicely. Sure, he's got to deal with a suicide first thing in the morning, but, hey, it comes with the territory. Then there's Lustig, (Matt Craven) the building's security chief dealing with the worst day of his career. Decent enough guy who definitely deserves to be somewhere else entirely.

The passengers are miffed at the technical difficulties they're forced to suffer through, but it doesn't seem all that bad. It starts to seem worse after the power flickers on and off. It doesn't just seem worse after Young Woman (Bojana Novakovic) gets a nasty slice down her back after the lights go out. One passenger thinks a serrated blade could've made the cut. Paranoia time.

(Seriously, they credited her as Young Woman even though she gets at least 40 mintues of screen time. No justice.)

It's not long before the situation's deteriorated enough for Bowden to get called to the scene, which gives Lustig's sidekick Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) a chance to expound upon his hypothesis that the Devil himself has caused this and that it's all going to end in torment and death, all while seemingly on the brink of a psychotic break. Not really something that endears him to the atheistic Bowden, but what're you gonna do?

Meanwhile, things are getting progressively worse in the confines of the elevator car. Mirrors shatter for no reason. People get bumped off when the lights flicker out. The survivors are wondering which one's the killer and thinking that maybe it'd be best to kill their companions. Just to be safe.

For a fairly low-budget movie (the production budget only ran about 10 mil) "Devil" is a good looking picture. Dowdle keeps the elevator scenes visually interesting, making the most out of what would seem to be a limiting set. The passengers are an unsavory lot, but the cast makes them compelling enough to side with, at least a little. It's good to see Messina and Craven get some serious screen time, too - they're both excellent character actors and I hope "Devil" opens up some bigger opportunities for them. The last 10 minutes of the movie are nicely done, too - I had a good-sized lump in my throat by the time the end credits rolled. Always a bonus when you've got a compelling story to go along with the carnage.

"Devil's" a polished, atmospheric thriller that delivers the tension and dread it promises. I was hoping that Dowdle would venture out into something more original after "Quarantine" and I was more than happy with what he delivered in "Devil". Definitely looking forward to parts two and three of "The Night Chronicles" after this one. If you want a good, creepy movie and don't need or want a lot of gore to go along with it, "Devil" is just the movie you're looking for.