Sunday 22 June 2014

Mystery Thriller! - Devil (2010)

So as promised guys, this article will make up for me rescheduling Friday's weekly post to today, which I hope will be epic due to the inconvenience I may have caused. Also, I noticed huge support on my blog post last night reviewing The Grudge, so I must give a huge thanks to all of you who checked it out and especially those who re-tweeted it on Twitter!
Anyways, I felt that Devil was a rather unique, and different horror than any other horror film. It sits comfortably under the 'mystery' sub-genre of horror, since the audience becomes very curious and puzzled as to how certain events occur. It is a very thrilling film in my opinion, being released only a few years ago, and the atmosphere is insane! It really is a frightening movie, full of creepy paranormal incidents within a single elevator!
The film is directed by John Erick Dowdle, and lasts 80 minutes overall which may seem short in comparison to other thrillers I have reviewed, but it's a great movie. The plot is very straightforward and is based in Philadelphia, based around Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), who we discover is still grieving over the deaths of his wife and son, who were killed in a hit-and-run incident years ago.
When a strange person jumps from the top of a huge skyscraper to a truck, Detective Bowden is sent in to investigate the horrible incident. During his investigation, after a small period of time, five strangers are unfortunately stuck in an elevator in the building that the person committed suicide. Moments later, strangely the communications links in the elevator are broken however the guards Lustig (Matt Craven), and Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) observe the situation using CCTV whilst paranormal events unfold. Due to increasing tension, Lustig calls the police quickly and Detective Bowden is sent in to investigate. Soon enough, the situation becomes messy as each of the victims are strangely wiped out by a strange paranormal force taking control of the elevator, and Detective Bowden knows that they must get them out immediately.
What I came up with about this film is that the director was successful in almost portraying the elevator as being claustrophobic. I thought this was very effective in a way by showing that each of the innocent victims were enclosed with no escape, and no freedom, merely waiting for their death. From this idea, I was clearly convinced with how scared each victim was, as after each mysterious death, the civilians panicked even more, and the situation got out of hand.
This film, similarly to The Grudge, received a lot of negative feedback, and I thought I would watch it to decide for myself whether I thought they were true or not, but I really enjoyed it. Believe me, I won't necessarily review a very poor horror movie, because I wouldn't enjoy blogging about it myself. I thought the cinematography was fairly impressive in the elevator scenes, and the building tension after each death was very significant. I felt as though it done what a good thriller should - keep you sitting at the edge of your seat for the whole run time. In terms of acting, I also felt it was very good and consistent and it was clear how large the fear was each innocent victim faced.
A disadvantage to the film was probably its run time. I think it would have been higher rated if it lasted longer and had a more detailed script, but for how long it lasted, I felt it was a decent horror. I feel you guys would enjoy this film if you have enjoyed the other films I have reviewed so far, as this contains several jumps, and is perfect in developing tension. Once again, I apologise about no blog post on Friday, but hopefully this will make up for it!

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