Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Devil Blu-ray Movie Review

"He was in a bind, cause he was way behind, and he was willin' to make a deal."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 8, 2010

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled? Apparently, staging a suicide, drawing five damned souls together into one place, playing a series of increasingly sinister mind games, killing off his annointed victims one by one, and making a public spectacle of his immense power; a successful tactic the Father of Lies has employed again and again throughout history. Or at least that's what we're told in the first few minutes of Devil, a silly but digestible B-movie plucked from the mind of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. No, Hollywood's once-beloved fallen angel didn't write or direct Devil -- those duties thankfully fell to Hard Candy screenwriter Brian Nelson and Quarantine director John Erick Dowdle -- but it hardly matters. His fingerprints are all over the crime scene. Quirky characters with dark secrets? Quasi-religious themes slathered in age-old genre conventions and wince-inducing dialogue? Transparent sleight of hand? High concept setup with a bargain-bin payoff? A looming twist ending with an over-inflated reveal? Hail, hail, the gang's all here. I will say Nelson and Dowdle do their best to flesh out Shyamalan's skeletal story, and in some ways they succeed. But the results aren't nearly as compelling, frightening or unsettling as they could be.

"You must consider that one of these people might be the Devil."

As a film sure to go down as one of the more literal interpretations of 1 Peter 5:8, Devil rarely cloaks its intentions. Everything but the finer points of Shyamalan and Nelson's story is laid out from the beginning: "When I was a child, my mother would tell me a story about how the devil roams the Earth. Sometimes, she said, he would take human form so he could punish the damned on Earth before claiming their souls. The ones he chose would be gathered together and tortured as he hid amongst them, pretending to be one of them. I always believed she was telling me an old wives' tale. My mother's story would always begin the same way, with a suicide paving the way for the devil's arrival. And it would always end with the deaths of all those trapped." Unfortunately, this simple introduction strips Devil of the intrigue and mystery it requires to resonate. We know from the outset -- before we lay eyes on a single character -- that the lost souls we meet will be eternally flawed, unredeemable monsters; that one of them will actually be the devil in disguise; and that it isn't likely any of them will survive their brush with ol' Lucy. We even learn the suicide that opens the film is largely inconsequential, and soon thereafter, that anyone who tries to interfere with the devil's game is inadvertently putting themselves on his chopping block. Not much room left for shock or surprise, I know. Even Devil's twist ending is less of a twist and more of a convergence; a crossroads at which the film's initially splintered subplots inevitably come together.

And so we're left with little choice but to anchor ourselves to Devil's decidedly decent do-gooders and devilishly depraved denizens; none of whom we can entirely trust, none of whom we risk caring about. (After all, any one of them may be the Prince of Darkness himself.) Our safest anchor points are Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), the police officer assigned to investigate the aforementioned suicide, and Ramirez (Jacob Vargas), a diligent security guard, a faithful man of prayer and, of course, our humble narrator. The remaining lot of miscreants -- a smarmy mattress salesman (Geoffrey Arend), a jittery young woman (Bojana Novakovic), a former military man and quiet mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green), a cantankerous old woman (Jenny O'Hara) and a temp security guard (Bokeem Woodbine) -- find themselves trapped on an elevator in Ramirez's building. Soon enough though, the lights begin flickering, bodies begin to drop, and the passengers realize there's a murderer in their midst. What follows is a none-too-subtle whodunit of sorts that challenges Bowden to choose between faith and reason, pits the surviving elevator passengers against one another in a startlingly small space, and provides the devil with plenty of quick, sick kicks.

While it aspires to stand shoulder to shoulder with films like John Carpenter's The Thing and Vincenzo Natali's Cube (among other notable horror classics and claustrophobic genre pics), its characters' storylines are too sketchy, its dialogue too forced, its psychological depth too shallow, its performances too heavy-handed, its scares too tame and its endgame too anticlimactic. The best horror films are those with the most believable protagonists, and Devil doesn't have many. It plays its cards so close to its chest that it's impossible to take much of anything seriously, and I found myself chuckling rather than shifting uncomfortably in my seat. (At one point, with the conviction of a sanctified saint, Ramirez drops a piece of toast to explain the methods people can use to test if the devil is in their immediate vicinity. The bread hits the floor jelly-side down, his lip quivers, and he breaks a cold sweat. I could barely contain myself.) That being said, Devil does improve as it creeps along, particularly as more and more of its lesser characters meet their timely ends. Nelson and Dowdle's third act even comes close to greatness for ten riveting minutes. With just two elevator passengers remaining, I suddenly took interest in the events that were unfolding... up until the misguided moment the devil made his grand entrance. "Too little, too late," my brain screamed. Devil outclasses anything and everything Shyamalan has given audiences over the last five years, I'll admit. But it ultimately disappoints. If you simply can't resist the temptation, take advantage of Netflix or Redbox, pop a bag of popcorn, and get the devil out of your system. Otherwise, move on to bigger and badder horror releases with a clear conscience.

Devil Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Unfortunately, Universal's 1080p/VC-1 transfer is a hit-or-miss affair. Though it isn't entirely clear whether Dowdle or the encode is to blame (I suspect the former), rampant crush plagues the proceedings, mashing shadows, suit coats, hair, guard uniforms and dim passageways into dark, amorphous blobs. Black levels range from oily to greasy (neither of which should be taken as a compliment), contrast spikes and lulls, and delineation is ungodly. More often than not, detail survives the onslaught -- the majority of closeups look quite good, object definition is noteworthy on the whole, and ringing isn't an issue -- but fine textures are occasionally washed away in the madness. While I'm fairly certain noise reduction hasn't been applied en masse (a fine veneer of grain suggests as much), the results are sometimes quite similar. Smearing sullies several key shots, bouts of softness crop up at inopportune times, and scenes in the elevator grow increasingly problematic as the devil closes in on his final victims. That being said, all is not lost. Tak Fujimoto's bleak palette remains strong from beginning to end, skintones are convincing throughout, overall detail is still commendable, and anomalies like artifacting, aberrant noise and significant banding are nowhere to be found. Moreover, scenes that take place on the street, in the building's lobby, in the security booth and on the upper floors of the skyscraper don't raise any red flags. Sadly, it isn't enough to save the transfer's soul. In the end, Devil delivers an at-times strong, at-times underwhelming presentation destined to leave more discerning videophiles in a huff.

Devil Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Devil's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is much more satisfying than its video transfer, even if a few obvious issues prevent it from completely rising above the fray. Dialogue is clean, clear and neatly prioritized (albeit to a fault at times), rear speaker activity is both engaging and enveloping, and dynamics effectively ratchet up the tension, often in spite of the film's shortcomings. Likewise, eerie pans and pinpoint directionality drag the listener -- kicking and screaming -- into the belly of the beast, and the LFE channel lends its full support to Fernando Velázquez's overpowering score and the elevator's most unnerving creaks and groans. Complaints? Regardless of its finer qualities, LFE output isn't as consistent or commanding as it could be, voices are a bit thin on occasion, and ambience is sometimes subdued in service of of conversations. Even so, Devil's lossless track will delight fans of the film, please any reasonable audiophile, and give more critical cinephiles at least one thing to enjoy.

Devil Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Blu-ray edition of Devil serves up ten minutes of anemic special features that bring very, very little to the table. Universal has included its usual suite of goodies -- BD-Live functionality, mobile device interactivity, D-BOX support, My Scenes bookmarking and a Digital Copy download code -- but it doesn't make up for the lack of commentaries, documentaries and behind-the-scenes material.

• Deleted Scenes (HD, 4 minutes): Three character intros Dowdle presumably cut from the film's first act.
• The Story (HD, 3 minutes): An all-too-short, clip-laden EPK with Shyamalan, Dowdle and Vargas.
• The Devil's Meeting (HD, 2 minutes): UCLA Folklore & Mythology Professor Ysamur Flores discusses the devil.
• The Night Chronicles (HD, 2 minutes): Shyamalan chats about his goals for "The Night Chronicles."

Devil Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've tried to resist using "the devil's in the details" ever since I started writing this review, but it's too perfect to avoid any longer. Devil's devil is in the details, be it the film's hollow story and contrived characters, Dowdle's direction and Nelson's script, or Universal's problematic video transfer and ten-minute supplemental package. Both Devil and its Blu-ray release could be so much more, but each one squanders its potential and comes up short. Hopefully, Shyamalan's next "Night Chronicles" production will pack more punch at the theater and at home.