Movie Review: Devil

First, five people are riding in an elevator together and it gets stuck. Then, they find out one of them is the devil. Great. No one on the building crew can figure out why the elevator is stuck in the first place – the mechanics seem fine. Then, {cue dramatic music} horrible things start happening. Of course, the people begin accusing each other of being the culprit. Each of the five has issues that we slowly learn about as the story progresses. The five are:

• A temporary security guard (Bokeem Woodbine) who works in the building and who has a police record.
• An irritating mattress salesman (Geoffrey Arend) who immediately begins getting on everyone’s nerves.
• A young woman named Sarah (Bojana Novakovic) who is caught in some lies.
• An older woman (Bojana Novakovic) who is a thief.
• A nervous young guy named Tony (Logan Marshall-Green) – no one is sure why he is even in the building.

Periodically, the lights in the elevator go out and every time they do, something bad happens. It’s done in classic Shyamalan fashion: the lights go out and you see quick flashes of what’s going on, and you hear shuffling sounds and lots of bumping around, but you can’t tell what it is or who’s doing it. These scenes are actually well done. Very thrilling.

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is brought in to try and solve a different mystery but soon ends up working on the elevator situation. Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) is a security guard who thinks something demonic is happening, although no one believes him initially.

Devil is more of a thriller than a horror movie, and it is very psychological. It is really not as bad as I feared it might be. The story unfolds in such a way that you are left guessing all the way to the end of the movie, although the ending does leave something to be desired. I give this movie two and a half Slurpees out of five.

* Devil * Director: John Erick Dowdle * Starring: Chris Messina, Bokeem Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend, Jenny O’Hara, Bojana Novakovic, Logan Marshall-Green * Writers: Brian Nelson (screenplay), M. Night Shyamalan (story) *  Time: 80 minutes * Rated PG-13 * Horror/Mystery/Thriller * Trailer *

Devil

Well, as I reported about a month ago, M. Night Shyamalan is co-producing a new movie coming out on September 17, 2010 called Devil.  According to IMDb, the plot of Devil is:

A group of people trapped in an elevator realize that the devil is among them.

The directors are Drew Dowdle and John Erick Dowdle and the cast includes Chris Messina, Geoffrey Arend, Logan Marshall-Green, and Bojana Novakovic. The movie starts Friday, September 17, 2010 and it is rated PG-13.

I just saw the trailer on TV for the first time.  Here it is:

M. Night Shyamalan producing “Devil”

M. Night Shyamalan is co-producing a new movie coming out on September 17, 2010 called Devil.  According to IMDb, the plot of Devil is:

A group of people trapped in an elevator realize that the devil is among them.

The directors are Drew Dowdle and John Erick Dowdle and the cast includes Chris Messina, Geoffrey Arend, Logan Marshall-Green, and Bojana Novakovic.

Here is the trailer for Devil: