Devil

After Lady In the Water and The Happening, I'm not sure why anyone would give M. Night Shyamalan the money to produce a trilogy of films, and then let him give it a retarded, self-indulgent name like "The Night Chronicles." On top of that, it seems like a movie that takes place largely in an elevator would be hard for anyone to pull it off, let alone someone like Shyamalan, who apparently had just one or two good stories in him. But he and director John Erick Dowdle actually manage to do it.

Honestly, I got my money's worth just during the opening credits sequence, which features a series of shots of Philadelphia filmed from overhead, but presented upside down. It's surreal and disorienting and absolutely gorgeous. Fortunately, the opening credits are backed up by a tense thriller with a twist that's more The Sixth Sense than Signs.

Spoilers follow...

Anyone who went into this thinking that the mystery of "Which one of these people in the elevator is the Devil?" was the most important part of the movie, was probably disappointed. With only five possibilities, it was going to come off as a bit predictable no matter who it turned out to be. But when it was revealed, I thought it still came as a decent shock. Not so much in that it turned out to be the old woman--I wasn't fooled by her "death"; I knew it was going to either be her or Geoffrey Arend's character--but the creepy way it was presented, with her rising up, eyes black, and looking about as bad-ass as an old woman can.

A movie I've always thought was really underrated is The Trigger Effect, which shows what happens to people when their safety net is removed and the standard rules of civilization cease to exist. The situation in Devil, being trapped in an elevator for a few hours with total strangers (before everyone start dying) isn't quite as dramatic, but it's still interesting to watch as tempers flare and people do their best not to freak out. You don't see many supernatural thrillers that also handle the non-supernatural thrills as well as Devil does.

I'm not sure how much of the film's mythology regarding The Devil's Meeting actually exists, and frankly, I'm too lazy to even Wikipedia it, but it sounded really good. It would have sounded even better if most the exposition had been delivered in some other way than by the annoying security guard/narrator. Another review I read of this film suggested that Chris Messina's detective character should appear in the other Night Chronicles films, linking them together. I'd personally rather the Devil show up. We didn't get much of him/her/it/whatever here, and I think they could do more.

My only one real complaint about Devil is that it should have opened a month from now, when everyone's really in the mood for horror films. It seems like it would have been even more enjoyable then. But as it stands, it's still a great film, and hopefully a sign that Shyamalan 's getting his mojo back.

Script: B+
Acting: B
Gore: C-
Overall: B+