DVD Reviews

Devil – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Dec 24, 2010, 21:17 GMT

Trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, five people discover that the Devil is among them – and no one can escape their fate. This chilling, supernatural thriller from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way to a heart-stopping ending with a truly wicked twist. ...more

At this point, the tagline ‘From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan’ is more of a threat than a promise of ending the film with any sort of satisfaction. Yet ‘Devil’ (which Shyamalan produced and provided the story for) is not bad. It is quick and with no-frills, but reasonably executed with a few fun scares.

With Shyamalan owing much of his career to both Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg, it makes sense that he’ll want to throw his hat into the ‘Alfred Hitchcock presents…’ and ‘Amazing Stories’ ring and this first ‘Night Chronicles’ production sets the stage well for follow-ups with a simple hook told with efficiency.

Maybe most of Devil’s credit should go to director John Erick Dowdle - who helmed ‘Quarantine’, the better-than-expected ‘REC’ remake. Both films featured a similar claustrophobic set-up of people being trapped with monsters or in this case the ultimate monster.

The film sets the viewer at unease right away with an opening credits sequence of the Philadelphia skyline shot upside down. It’s a technique so obvious in providing unsettlement that I can’t believe it hasn’t been used before.

We quickly jump into the action with an opening narration (narration rarely works and indeed proves a constant annoyance here) that tells the story of how the devil will sometimes join us on Earth to wreak some havoc on a handful of questionable individuals. This havoc will usually start off with a suicide; cue the jumper and the devil’s rather playful plan that involves a smarmy businessman, an obnoxious old woman, a temp security guard, a well-off young woman and a mysterious mechanic all unfortunately choosing the same elevator to get on.

Elevators always prove to be an awkward experience for me, being packed into that tight of a space with complete strangers and where ‘Devil’ succeeds is capitalizing on that awkwardness and taking it up a notch.

If the elevator fails and goes dark and when the lights return, someone turns up dead, what do you do? I’m not sure but it’s probably close to what happens in this film: suspicion, panic, anger. And when you’re dealing with eight square feet, the fight or flight instincts only leave one option.

While a lot of the film takes place in the elevator, there’s also a TV-like police procedural taking place outside as the police, particularly Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), try and figure out what the hell is happening as they can see these crazy events unfold through the elevator camera. Who are these people and what could possibly be their motives for murder? It’s no spoiler to say that clearly the devil is involved but the one twist the film does try to offer is groan-inducing and predictable.

Excusing that ‘twist’ and the cheesy security guard narration, ‘Devil’ ends up being well worth the elevator ride. The cast is a mostly solid bunch of unknowns that deliver the goods when necessary with the film relying more on performance to convey the scares rather than gore (hence the PG-13 rating).

There’s a few jump scares but these cheap tricks of the horror genre are not abused too much. And at an hour and fifteen minutes sans credits, even if you don’t like it, you didn’t waste much of your time.

The 1080p 2.35 encode is simply okay but considering most of the action takes place in an elevator, most of the problems can be looked past without much issue.

This is not to excuse the lackluster detail and black levels that is somewhat head-scratching considering this being a new theatrical release. The DTS-HD Master Aud track is certainly a step up though with crisp clear dialogue and a lot of enveloping surround action. When that elevator shakes and rattles, you may feel compelled to grab onto something to steady yourself.

Special Features are oddly underwhelming considering the relative theatrical success. We get 4 minutes of ‘Deleted Scenes’ and three super short featurettes ‘The Story, ‘The Devil’s Meeting’ and ‘The Night Chronicles’ all of which run around 2 minutes which begs the question: why bother? We also get our typical Universal Blu offerings like ‘My Scenes’ and ‘PocketBlu’.

While we’re not dealing with ‘The Exorcist’ here, this provides a nice evening of thrills if you go in with the right expectations. Think of it as a slightly extended modern ep of ‘The Twilight Zone’ and the pic comes recommended. The Blu release is a bit disappointing however with so-so vid and ho-hum special features.

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