Devil (2010) User Reviews

Ignore the Bad Press - This movie is pretty good!

[vikascoder · 7/10 · 8 November 2010]

I know this was "from the mind of Manoj Night Shyamalan" and it was riding on a wave of pretty bad press, but strangely enough, I found the movie to be pretty good.

This movie delivered what it promised, a solid taut thriller which can keep one on the edge of the seat for the optimum 1 hour and 20 minutes of running time. The acting was surprisingly consistent and good throughout by all the actors involved (tough for a low budgeter to achieve), the screenplay didn't indulge in unnecessary Boo moments to propel things forward, the script was solid and everything tied up well at the end.

I mean cmon critics, for once please give Shyamalan a break! Far better return on my money than the steaming goo pile called the "Due Date".

Very nice cinematography

[msanjelpie · 6/10 · 17 September 2010]

I enjoyed the cinematography. Especially the opening scenes and the scenes inside the elevator shaft. The music was typical string instruments going back and forth... could have been more eerie and composed with more feeling.

I was pretty shocked to be sitting in an empty theater on opening night. Guess MNS has sort of blown his reputation.

I didn't try to guess the ending, I decided to just enjoy the ride. It did end rather abruptly, as if it was a TV show that had to end by a certain time. They could have fleshed out certain scenes longer and made a more comprehensive experience.

I went to see this alone as nobody I knew was interested... I'm glad I went, it was enjoyable, more so than I expected it to be.

The elevator equivalent of Lifeboat and Ten Little Indians

[Craig_McPherson · 7/10 · 18 September 2010]

M. Night Shyamalan is one of those love him or hate him directors for whom there's no middle ground, so it hasn't helped that he's given his detractors a lot to crow about with his recent downward spiral with successively poor to abysmal movies ranging from The Lady in the Water to 2010's biggest stinker, The Last Airbender. It's been a critical pile-on for the one time golden boy who wowed audiences and critics alike with The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable.

Things have gotten so bad that when the trailer for Devil hit theatres with the on-screen tag line "From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan", guffaws were reported from audiences and on-line gadflies like Perez Hilton had a field day posting viral videos mocking the promos.

All of which is too bad because not only is Devil a compelling, riveting bit of movie making, but Shyamalan's involvement was limited to writing the story and co-producing, which, given his recent track record, was probably for the best.

Smartly directed by John Erick Dowdle, whose last effort was Quarantine, the equally tight and faithful remake of the Spanish horror REC, Devil marks the first instalment in a trilogy of films dubbed The Night Chronicles, which revolve around the supernatural in modern urban settings (the second film is tentatively titled Reincarnate, about the jurors of a murder trial who are haunted by a supernatural being, and Unbreakable 2 rumoured as the third instalment).

In Devil's case, the plot could easily function as a textbook case of film school 101, tasking a writer and director to fashion a small story, restricted in scope, set in the cramped environment of a stalled elevator. You can almost hear film school professors saying "if you can pull this off, you can do anything". Happily, Dowdle succeeds with flying colours.

Devil is as compelling as the story is confined. It's smart from beginning to end, almost like the hybrid elevator equivalent of Hitchcock's Lifeboat and Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. A disparate group boards a Philadelphia office tower elevator, only to become trapped between floors and mortally victimized by someone among them who clearly possesses supernatural ability every time the lights flicker and momentarily go out.

Don't look for spoilers here as I won't be providing any. Suffice to say that Devil is one of the most smartly written, acted, and directed films I've had the pleasure to enjoy this year.

Who knows, maybe this is the beginning of Shyamalan's road back to respectability. If nothing else, it shows that he still has the chops as a top notch story teller.

Devil

[0U · 13 February 2020]

Produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Devil is an intense supernatural thriller. The story follows five strangers who get stuck in an elevator and begin to turn on each other after one of them is attacked and killed during a power outage, meanwhile some unknown force seemingly prevents rescue from the outside. The script is especially well-written, and really brings dramatic tension to the situation. The storytelling too is quite engrossing; drawing the audience into the mystery of who the characters are and what is happening. A riveting and well-crafted film, Devil does an extraordinary job at exploring the themes of paranoia and fear.

Great thriller!

[AnnaPagrati · 7/10 · 30 August 2021]

Managed to intrigue you & create an atmosphere. A little harsh in some scenes!

Well rounded

[MovieLover1925 · 7/10 · 27 July 2020]

Pretty good movie all around. Pretty creepy. It went by fast though. Was not expecting who the "devil" was

A very solid psycho thriller

[kluseba · 7/10 · 12 October 2010]

After several weaker movies, Shyamalan begin to work on a new trilogy about the presence of supernatural evil in big cities. He concentrated on the script and preferred to let other people direct the movie and so you might expect that this first part of Shyamalan's renaissance must be a well elaborated and twisted masterpiece. Well, this is absolutely not the case, there are no major twists or surprises in the story. But that doesn't mean that this movie is without the glimpse of a doubt a very well done psycho thriller.

Let me mention the negative points first. The movie isn't really long. There are only two minor twists and the first one is not that much surprising while the second one is an interesting turning point of the story but also a little bit predictable towards the end of the movie. The story is not really innovating and this time, Shyamalan really delivers what he announces in the previews. Because of the short running time, not every character is extremely well developed and profound. The critical and philosophic influence that many movies of Shyamalan had is not very present in this movie.

But there are more positive points about this movie. There is a high tension present throughout the whole length of the movie and this is what makes the watching experience breathless and intense, you don't see time pass at all. The movie spares out the unnecessary and goes straight in your face which isn't that usual for Shyamalan's earlier works. That is something new, fresh and innovative coming from him and a little positive surprise for many but maybe also a little deception for some of his more purist fans. The interactions between the characters in the elevator are intense and very interesting. Every character has a very unique and special behaviour and something interesting to hide even if the characters could have been more developed if the movie had maybe twenty minutes more running time. The actions in the movie become more and more intense towards the finish and end up in a well done finale that leaves you with no open questions.

All in all, this is surely not the best of Shyamalan's movies but way better than the last stuff he has done before this movie. It is not a very surprising and philosophical movie, but rather a short and intense psycho thriller. It is a very good movie but far away from being the best movie of the year. It is worth watching it at the cinema or at home, but i wouldn't recommend buying this movie at the full price without having seen it before.

Sorry, I just couldn't go there.

[eyecandyforu · 5/10 · 19 September 2010]

I was looking forward to this one, the trailers seemed to promise some tight thrills and scares. Honestly, as is the case with many films now, the trailer was better than the overall film. The story is ridiculously simple. People trapped in an elevator may or may not be terrorized by Lucifer. I suppose it would help if the concept of the Devil was somehow relevant to you personally, but I've never been able to buy it as a legitimate horror vehicle. As is the case many times with God, why Satan would take the time from what I can only assume is a very busy schedule to play out a scenario that the movie presents left me with more questions than I would like to have trying to be entertained. Many of the "set-ups" which come via narration are new to me: Suicides bring him out of hiding, he likes to have an audience, and surprise of surprises, he doesn't like to make deals. Huh. The production is fine, the acting was fine, it was the story itself that I found lacking. What could have been a good half hour on television is stretched to feature length. We know very little about anyone, so caring about anyone is difficult. Characters behave strangely from the very beginning. Even when we find out a tiny bit of information about a character it only serves to justify the story, not build a character. Overall, typical Shyamalan. Take a simple concept and stretch it, and stretch it and....

A Nutshell Review: Devil

[DICK STEEL · 8/10 · 15 September 2010]

Maybe it's because M Night Shyamalan is finally coming to terms that he no longer is the toast of the town, that he has decided to focus his energies on producing and writing suspenseful thrillers for his project known as The Night Chronicles, with the first film Devil off the blocks, and others to come including his original story idea from his planned sequel to Unbreakable. We know how Shyamalan of late likes to direct and include himself as one amongst the cast, though this time it probably took a lot of effort to vacate that director's chair and quash that acting bug, to allow someone else to helm what is essentially a film that's right up Shyamalan's own territory. It's almost like putting a candy jar in front of a kid, but not allowing him access at all.

Enter directors Drew and John Erick Dowdle, who I thought made a decent effort in bringing to life Shyamalan's story set around the confines of a claustrophobic lift, where five strangers happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, each of them being trapped inside the lift and sharing some common traits that will be revealed as the story wore on. The film addresses the notion that nothing is ever coincidental, especially if powerful negative forces like the devil decide to walk the earth and claim a few souls, while at the same time having fun toying with their prey. Weaving in a folk tale like what he did for Lady in the Water, Shyamalan's tale here involves the full works of how the devil operates, and comes with a method to defeat the supernatural forces seen in the film.

The directors managed to steer clear of the usual clichés for a fright fest, and rightly so as well because this is not that film. Granted that there are a few well crafted scenes to suggest that there are spiritual elements involved in how the victims - a mechanic (Logan Marshall- Green), an old woman (Jenny O'Hara), a young woman (Bojana Novakovic), a guard (Bokeem Woodbine) and a salesman (Geoffrey Arend) - the real draw is how visually arresting this film is in capturing fear from within close quarters. The opening sweeping shot of the city of Philadelphia upside down will bring about some disorientation, before reducing that spatial distance down to within the lift, mirroring that view through a CCTV camera back to the building's security control room, which to me is where some of the best instances of the film shines through.

I'd actually preferred what went on outside of that lift, since what's going to happen within is more like a done deal, with one of the five already revealed through marketing that he/she is someone who doesn't belong. There's more fun in following Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), who has to make sense of what's going on, balancing his deductive prowess against something that cannot be explained by logic, and watching how his due diligence and process get blown to smithereens when at first he thinks this is a simple open and shut situation, until he realizes that he's up against something that's inexplicable. It's one thing to swagger in with a plan, before fear sets in that one can be so helpless when trying to save the lives of others.

The strength of the film lies in Shyamalan's story, which is deceptively simple, yet highly effective in weaving all the plot threads together, and the linking up of the characters so crucial in providing a satisfying finale. Fans of Shyamalan's stories will find that he still has more than enough gas in the tank to come up with suspenseful tales that others now have a chance to helm on the big screen, something like what Luc Besson does these days. My interest is now piqued to see how the rest of the Chronicles will present themselves.

That went well

[akshatmahajan · 7/10 · 21 June 2022]

I didn't have that much expectations for this movie. Just watched it as it was horror drama and runtime was also short. To my surprise, the movie was good. It had elements of horror and surprise and keeps you gripped till the end. You want to know how will movie end. Overall, it was a good watch.

Guard your jelly sandwiches, when the devil is around it lands jelly side down!

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 4/10 · 7 September 2011]

Ah, good ol' M. Night Shamalamadingdong, as I like to call him. I feel so bad for this guy, when he created The Sixth Sense, he made one of the best thrillers of all time with a twist ending that set the bar so high that others would always try to succeed it. Ever since then, Shamalamadingdong has been trying to outdo himself with a ton of twist endings and scripts that my Pomeranian could write. When I saw the trailer for Devil, I got excited because it looked really creepy, then I saw the director's name and just sighed, it's pretty much likely that the movie will flop and will be horrible. I just caught it on a movie channel, actually I have to give Shamalamadingdong some credit, this is an improvement over his last films. However, it's still one of the most ridicules movies I have ever seen.

Five strangers board an elevator, which becomes stuck between floors just shortly after starting up to the upper floors. The five don't introduce themselves right away, but when security finds them, they notice that other than the CCTV and a radio which they can communicate into the elevator. Lustig, the head of security, sends repair technician Dwight to investigate the elevators while Bowden tries to ascertain the identities of the individuals. Things turn from strange to frightening when there is a freak power outage in the elevator, and the girl in the elevator is wounded with what appears to be a bite. Dwight attempts to rappel down the elevator shaft via a pulley to try and fix the elevator, but security guard Ramirez says that the Devil would stop any attempts to help his victims as more supernatural things occur; this proves there is a demonic entity in the elevator haunting the passengers.

There's this line that nearly killed me with laughter, the religious nut Ramirez says that everything goes wrong when the devil is near, he throws a piece of pizza and it lands on the cheese side and says that the jelly side always lands up, oh, my God, seriously?! So all those times I was cooking in the kitchen when my chicken burned, it was the devil! All those times I fell down, it was the work of the devil! How could you ever take that line seriously? I also was watching the movie with my friends and once again we took the classic bet 10 dollars for who would guess the devil, I won, again! My opinion is, a lot of old people are the devil, they cling onto the god skirt later in life claiming that it's because they are about to die and they need to get into heaven, no! They are covering something else! I digress, anyways, when the devil reveals herself, the guy that she's after confesses to his sin and she's like "damn, I really wanted you"….really? You went through all this trouble and all he has to do is say his sin out loud and all is forgiven? Also the whole religious factor was silly in my opinion, why not just make it a demon entity in the elevator? It's hard to believe that the devil doesn't have better things to do than haunt a couple of dead beats.

However, my review isn't all complaints. Shamalamadingdong actually does a decent job with atmosphere and the story. Even though the script needs some major work without the clichés, there was some incredible potential for a great story, even an excellent franchise that we need since the Saw series came to an end last year. I like the whole idea of a demon haunting those who have done wrong in life waiting to confess and get the punishment they truly deserve. The characters were interesting, except for Ramirez who can easily get on a lot of people's nerves, and the effects were actually pretty good. I would say this is definitely an improvement over Shamalamadingdong's previous works. He's come a long way and hopefully he just chooses better scripts or learns how to edit, we need the tension still, he knows he can do it, we believe in you Shamalmadingdong!

4/10

Quite Underrated

[aidanratesmovies · 9/10 · 5 October 2021]

It can be a little silly at times, but for the most part- Devil is a perfectly crafted and brilliantly claustrophobic psychological thriller that is bound to keep you guessing till the very end. That's right, in the same year Shyamalan gave us his very worst film, he also provided help for the screenplay of some of his best, or at the very least, better works. The film is intriguing from the getgo- a murder mystery unfolding into a claustrophobic nightmare gone wrong. It does a brilliant job of capturing the tension on the screen, especially through the great cinematography throughout and a clear direction of tone. What I feel the film does so well however, is being able to balance fantasy and realism to an unsettling degree- knowing the audience won't quite know where the film will take us and building on that to a large degree to keep us guessing. The acting, for the most part, isn't anything special. Somewhat mediocre performances from some of the main elevator gang- although Logan Marshall Green and especially Chris Messina do bring their all to the characters at hand- even though they can seem a bit shallow at times. In the end, Devil is a well crafted and tension building thriller that is able to balance its horror in a very unique and brilliant fashion. It may not play all its cards right, but it does still prove to be a chilling ride- as well as a true masterclass in budget filmmaking.

My Rating: 8.5/10.

Satisfying

[beatleblack · 7/10 · 3 October 2010]

Maybe 7 out of 10 is generous but I mark it highly perhaps because I had such low expectations which were thankfully unnecessary.

This film's credits open with the title The Night Chronicles 1 which suggests to me his fan-boy homage to Spielberg has stretched to emulating the guru's Amazing Stories phase. This film does feel rather like one of those episodes rather than a full-blown movie: no stars, little location etc.

However, as a story, it's rather good (suspension of disbelief taken for granted).

And, it's rather well handled directorially. For instance, the upside-down sklyline speaks volumes without costing any extra.

The film is ultimately a whodunnit. Maybe I'm stupid but come betting slip time, I didn't get it. If you do, you may hate it. I didn't so I don't. Besides, I haven't seen this Christian propaganda in a while & it made me kinda nostalgic for those Omen days.

Narration kills it

[jimlivingston · 4/10 · 10 December 2010]

What is the point of watching a movie when the narrator tells you the story before it happens? How about instead of telling me the story at the beginning of the movie LET ME WATCH IT.

I get the sense that MNS was worried people wouldn't understand the movie was based on a bedtime story some grandmother told a kid, like some did with Lady in the Water.

The actual movie itself was good. The acting was pleasant. I thought the writing was above average. I would have enjoyed it more had I not known what was going to happen, before it happened, because the narrator told me it would happen.

And another thing, we don't need to be told it is a story about the Devil. We can figure that out on our own from the title of the movie!

Awesome movie!

[jennifer-25-965231 · 28 July 2011]

Great acting, funny, thrilling, edge of your seat fun. I am not a fan of M. Night Shylaman, but I have to admit I really enjoyed this movie. I went in with very low expectations being that as I said I'm not a fan and really, how much action can you put in an elevator? I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie had me hooked from the very beginning. The cinematography was amazing. The swooping shots of the city, the creepy elevator shaft, all set the mood for shivers as it reminded me of my fear of extreme heights and confined spaces.

As the story progressed and you learned more about the characters I found myself completely engaged and sitting at the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.

ZombieSteak.com - Discover a new world of horror films, designed just for you.

Decent

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 12 January 2012]

The concept was intriguing, so I was very eager to watch Devil. And I did like it on the whole. I was dubious though seeing as M Night Shyamalan was producing and writing, now I loved The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and Signs and The Village had some good things too, but after that his films had ranged from strange to dire.

I think it was a good thing that Shyamalan produced and wrote this movie rather than directed, that way we could see more of the promising story-telling that he proved he was capable of with The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and less of the trying to do too much notion that spoilt The Village for example.

Devil is not a perfect movie, it is too short, the ending was rushed and abrupt and the character of Ramirez was rather annoying with the unintentionally funny bit with the pizza slice really jarring with the atmosphere. However it is smartly directed by John Erick Dowdle, the atmosphere is spooky and tense and the cinematography and sound effects are really effective.

The music score is does enhance the mood mostly, but there are times when it does get rather obvious. The dialogue is apart from a couple of cheesy and out of place moments with Ramirez taut and the story complete with a great idea is well paced and works very well generally. The characters are not the most memorable but they are more than the stereotypes that we found in The Happening and Lady in the Water, and the acting while not award-worthy is good with Chris Messina and Bojana Novakovic particularly noteworthy.

All in all, a decent film that falls slightly short of what it could've been, but it could've been much worse than it turned out. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

Danger on an elevator...in the dark...with the Devil.

[michaelRokeefe · 7/10 · 19 September 2010]

M. Night Shyamalan strikes again with an anxiety filled nerve wrecker. John Erick Dowdle directs this tale of forced repentance when five total strangers with questionable pasts are trapped in a Philadelphia skyscraper's elevator. Suspicion mixes with fear when strange and terrifying events take place...in the dark. They can't be heard, but are watched on security camera. As the anxious hours pass by, the group comes to realize the Devil is among them...spiritually or humanly? Now the trapped strangers struggle to survive at the same time trying to find the devil among them. The cast includes: Chris Messina, Bokeem Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend, Jenny O'Hara, Matt Craven and the Serbian born beauty Bojane Novakovic. This flick may not be crowded with action, but damn sure holds your interest.

Next time....... take the stairs.

[doorsscorpywag · 1/10 · 1 December 2010]

To start off it's not as bad as The Happening, a term which may well become an International measurement of awfulness in movies if this man is allowed to make any more films.

But it is utterly pathetic.

Plot goes like this: Bloke jumps off a roof and in true comedy fashion falls on truck whilst another bloke with ear defenders buffs the pavement. Truck then trundles off on it's own round corner without bothering the buffer. Five people then get in a lift and none of them are what they seem. Lift mysteriously stalls. Then some religious maniac working as a security guard sees weird face on video feed in lift and declares that the Devil, not a devil mind but THE Devil is in the lift disguised as one of them. Cop with dull back story investigating comedy jumper does not believe, then for no apparent reason does believe. Lots of really boring stuff happens in the lift and the passengers die but the survivors seem really calm that they are in a lift and people keep dying every time the lights go out. The acting is as poor as the script and the rare attempts to show any emotion seem forced and badly done. The tension is racked up by using the lights in the lift. Light go out somebody die. Light come on cue bad acting in reaction to lift filling up with dead people. The ending is really stupid and surely in this day and age the Devil can occupy his time more fruitfully than playing a dull game with people in a lift. If I was the Devil I would have to be really bored to bother doing this.

MNS has made some rubbish films and this though not his worst, see Happening measure of awfulness, is among them. Not remotely tense or scary or even interesting. Five people trapped in a lift with the Devil should be terrifying but in the hands of MSN is reduced to an absolute absurdity.

Perhaps MSN is actually the Devil and his fiendish plan is to bore the human race to death with crap movies? Now that seems more plausible than the lift idea.

Pretty Darn Good.

[Daleylife · 8/10 · 25 September 2010]

This film had a lot of bad rep. Everyone kept saying it was going to be horrible. However, I still went to see it, as the story and the concept interested me.

Now, in my opinion, the film is right up there with The Sixth Sense. It's engaging, keeps you guessing, and you leave feeling like you just saw a darn good movie.

The film doesn't rely on gore heavily. Instead, the film wants you to guess just who is the devil in that elevator. The story is fresh and makes a clear connection between all characters.

The bottom line is-- sure, it's not the best film ever, but it is a pretty darn good one. 8/10.

Unexpectedly good movie

[funnycommentor · 7/10 · 28 February 2023]

First of all, the plot of the movie was very interesting and when I first watched the trailer of the movie, I really liked it. The storyline was very well written and most parts of the movie were well-explained. The characters were kinda interesting and well-developed, but not really likeable. The filming location of the movie was basically an elevator in a huge skyscraper, it was very claustrophobic. The killcount of the movie wasn't really bloody, but most kills were done in a really shocking way. The casting and the acting were both just fine. Also, it was a very intense movie and there were too many shocking scenes! The ending scene was definitely unexpected and the plot twist was really good. Moreover, there were many jumpscares and scary scenes during the movie and most of them were definitely unpredictable. Overall, it was a really good movie, full of plot twists and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Wow this movie is almost terrible

[peterlane5 · 4/10 · 9 October 2010]

I knew this was going to be bad but I went anyway. The dialogue is awful and at times laughable. The characters are bland and I didn't really care about any of them. The writers need to go back to go back to writing school or read Robert McKee's "Story" and get a better sense on how to make better characters. I know in horror movies characters are the least of the writer's worries but come on! M. Night Shyamalan should have done a rewrite before he handed this in to be made into a script.The movie at times is clichéd(i.e. guy who knows whats going on but everyone thinks he's crazy). I won't ruin anything but its pretty frigging obvious who the devil is which is another cliché I wont say because it would ruin the movie. But the biggest problem I had with this was that it wasn't even scary. I'm a big fan of the horror movies that make you jump, but in this you can see the next jump scene coming from miles away and it's also obvious when the next person is going to die. The lights go out followed by about 20 seconds of a completely black screen, then the lights come back on and a character is dead. Now this movie isn't all bad. I liked the idea and overall moral of the movie. And Geoffrey Arend brings some comic relief to the movie but he is the only decent actor in this movie. The others are bad. If you really want to see this movie, wait a few months till it comes out on Netflix or something like that. Don't pay money to see this!!

Many reviewers missed the point

[dentrex · 10/10 · 4 February 2012]

There's an old saying in show business: Bad press is as good as good press. Seems to me many people went to see this film to find out if it was as "bad" as this M. Night Schmegegy (or whatever) guy's other films. I knew not of this individual until I saw this film, so I came in dead cold. No pun intended :)

Nice work indeed. Tense and action-packed, it delivers on a lot of levels. Much light has been made of the security guard's ramblings but its part of the suspension of disbelief and provides a loose narration. Well put together and cohesive, and an 80 minute film to boot. This forces the story along no matter what, and that's what you want in a film, to keep the viewer engaged at all times. Tough to achieve but done wonderfully. Camera work is subtle, yet more aggressive where its needed, no shaky-cams or dizzying hallways, but nice perspectives of the elevator, needed to divert the mind from the cubical enclosure for 15 seconds. Nice chills when the elevator lights go out, NOT overdone at all.

An underrated film, with underrated performances by all. Carefully constructed and a welcome addition to the genre. Highly recommended.

Simple and Economical

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 27 October 2013]

M. Night Shyamalan has written this striped down story. Five strangers are trapped in an office elevator. There is already an unexplained death in the building. As people gets kill in the elevator, suspicions and tensions explode.

This is a tight little 80 minute movie. The style is sparse. There isn't much flash. The devil is mostly a play of lighting and sounds. It is well done and economically. The movie doesn't get bog down with a long boring introduction. I'm sure the haters will ridicule M Night's recent failures. It's easy to pile on, but this movie reminds us why his movies were first praised. It is a simple bed time horror story.

Sort out your sock drawer in preference to wasting time on this movie

[graphicsguy-903-859031 · 1/10 · 23 December 2010]

Words fail me in describing just how disappointed I was with the time I wasted on this movie.

The omens were initially good. The movie publicity was convincing. On paper, everything pointed towards an exciting, spooky movie, one that the wife might enjoy. Instead, we were inflicted with standard Hollywood formulaic spooker clichés (Oh-oh, the lights are flickering, that means something really bad is going to happen...) along with the contrived who-is-the-killer character-building so that (of course) we are supposed to be fooled by the obviously nastiest personalities, according to the highly detailed crime sheets the detectives manage to magic up from the bowels of a remote building in record time (from which it is difficult to get a cell phone signal).

Led by the nose and an uncannily correct superstitious Mexican security guard fueling our worst fears, we are force-fed the inevitable "twist" which came not on tippy-toes but driving a tractor to astonish us by revealing that - stand by for more clichés - the least likely person you might suspect HAD TO BE the culprit. Puhleease. Even the wife didn't go for it.

At the end, I really had to check whether some conservative Christian fundamentalist organization had bankrolled this crap. The final spoken line (I won't spoil it for you because that is utterly impossible) is up there with John Wayne's "Surely he was the son of Gawd". I wanted to throw myself in front of the Evil One and shout "Take me, take me!" to end the pain.

Do yourself a big favor. Avoid, avoid, avoid. No need to thank me.

Better than expected

[Apalerwuss · 7/10 · 13 June 2022]

Well constructed horror movie that sees a bunch of despicable people thrust together into an elevator which then breaks down. One by one, they're picked off - but who is to blame?

It's the sort of movie that could easily have fallen into "awful" territory, but it was well written and acted, and executed with aplomb. At 90 minutes, it's the perfect length for this type of film - long enough to create a compelling story, but not too long as to overcook things.