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Devil
Don't call it a comeback but don't turn your back on it, either (you might get bitten)
Now that my Shyamalan Recap is out of the way, we can get to his new and best film in a while, Devil. I was sitting through the trailers before Inception when I first saw the trailer for Devil and it caught my attention until I saw the words "From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan". At that point I completely cracked up and lost interest. Maybe that was the wrong reaction, but after Lady in the Water and The Happening, can you really blame me? Shyamalan has really fallen as a director/writer in the course of 8 years (the last movie of his that I enjoyed was Signs). Thankfully, Devil is watchable. It definitely is not great AT ALL but it's not terrible and that's a glaring recommendation, all things considered.
Maybe the reason that Devil is better than the average Shyamalan film is that he did not direct it. That task was left to the Dowdle brothers, who know how to use darkness to their advantage. That's where the films creepiest scenes take place; I never knew what was going to be lurking when the lights came back on. Whatever it was was consistently bad, as in bite marks and corpses. When the first elevator passenger perishes, it's in quite a disturbing fashion. The violence only escalates from there. The movie barely escapes being R-rated and I suspect that had a few more "fucks" been thrown in, it would have gotten it.
But the movie, even with all that violence, is not really suspenseful. Sure, it's scary every now and then, but everyone that took the time to see it knew that a twist was coming. After all, Shyamalan DID write it. We didn't quite know what it was, but we knew it was coming, and that kind of made the big reveal at the end lose its impact. Oh yeah, and about that reveal: it completely loses its impact because it is fucking stupid. It is dead on arrival, and I mean that in more ways than one (my choice of words there was so ironic). Shyamalan cheats so bad in crafting this particular twist that it makes me want to go to Hollywood, pull him out of his house, and slap the shit out of him. It squanders what little potential the movie had in being good and instead lowers it down to the barely decent level.
The acting is not of particular notability. Great performances are not required in a film like this, even though it would have been nice to see one standout performance. If I had to pick one, I'd say Chris Messina I suppose, but who really cares? Well, there is one other person that caught my attention toward the end of the movie, but to tell that person's name would be to give away the twist (*SPOILER BELOW*). None of the other actors are doing anything special beyond what they are required to do, which is stand there and act scared.
When I got done watching Devil, I let out a huge sigh of relief. I thought that it would be just the vilest thing I had ever watched, but I was wrong. It is marginally entertaining and gives me hope for the next movie in his "Night Chronicles", whatever the hell those are (and I know that they are a series of three movies that he is working on before anybody starts). It could be just my overwhelming desire to see another good Shyamalan movie that forced me to halfway enjoy Devil. It could be that. But halfway enjoy it I did. It's an extremely flawed movie with some dumbass scenes and an unintelligent conclusion, but there is some good in there somewhere. I dug deep and I found it. I hope you can do the same.
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***SPOILER ALERT*** Jenny O'Hara, who plays the Old Woman (as she is labeled in the credits), is the devil and she is creepy. ***SPOILER ALERT END***
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