Late Night with the Devi

Movie Name: Late Night with the Devil
Year of Release: 2023
Director: Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
Starring: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig, Josh Quong Tart, Steve Mouzakis, Paula Arundell, Tamala Shelton, Christopher Kirby, John Leary, Gaby Seow
Genre: Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

"Late Night with the Devil" had its premiere in 2023 at the South by Southwest Film Festival where it was well received, eventually sending the film on a solid commercial run. The film follows the story of Jack Delroy, a fictional late night show host in the 1970s, who competes in ratings with The Tonight Show (with Johnny Carson). We learn that Jack frequently attends "The Grove", an elite California camp for wealthy and powerful individuals, and that he has gone through a traumatic event with the recent death of his wife, Madeleine. Following her death he briefly disappeared, but reappears ready to continue with the show, even if the ratings remain low. The production team decides to do a special occult-related show for Halloween, and invites a self-proclaimed psychic and medium, Christou, alongside the debunker and former magician, Carmichael Craig, and also parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell, who appears with one of her patients, a young girl by the name of Lilly, who is reportedly possessed by a demonic entity. The show gets started with Christou, who interacts with the audience, and makes some claims, something that Carmichael deems as staged. Things escalate when Christou projectile vomits a black liquid, and has to be rushed to the hospital. Jack is later informed that he died in the ambulance. Following the situation with Christou, Dr. June comes in with Lilly, and while initially reticent about letting Lilly go on and showcase the possession, Jack convinces her to do so. Lilly becomes possessed, levitates in her chair, and even indicates having met Jack before. Carmichael once again attempts to debunk the situation, with a case of mass hypnotism, until Lilly is once again possessed and things get out of control.

"Late Night with the Devil" is an unexpected surprise, a film that smartly brings to life a bygone era, all the while creating an environment dominated by unease and progressive dread. The writer/director team allow for the escalation of the horrific moments to occur, opting to do both scenario construction and a progressive disclosure of sorts, where we learn just enough about the characters, in order to better understand their motivations and how they've converged together. The film could have benefited a bit more of character development, particularly for Jack, June and some of the production team members, but the creative team provides just enough information so that these characters don't appear as flimsy clichés. By the time the more standard horror elements surface, the film does take a conventional take on the possession genre, but manages to do so within the finely crafted scenario they created (in this case the talk show of the late 70s). It's a film that benefits from a solid cast, in particular the always underrated David Dastmalchian, who finally has a lead role that showcases his immense talent, with good support from Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss and Rhys Austeri. The production team on this film is equally impressive, with highlights going to Matthew Temple's cinematography, Otello Stolfo's fantastic production design, and Steph Hooke's costume design. It's an intelligent film that seizes one's attention, with great attention to detail, even if it ties itself to some unnecessary clichés. 

Trap

Movie Name: Trap
Year of Release: 2024
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Haley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett
Genre: Crime, Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

M. Night Shyamalan's more recent prolific output continues, with "Trap" being the latest of his endeavors, following last year's well received "Knock at the Cabin". "Trap" focuses its narrative on Philadelphia firefighter Cooper Abbott, whom we first encounter taking his daughter Riley, to a concert featuring one of her idols, Lady Raven. The arena is packed, but Cooper notices the space is filled with police officers, including SWAT and even FBI agents. While trying to get a swag tshirt for his daughter, he learns from one of the vendors that the whole police parafernalia is in reality an attempt to catch a dangerous serial killer who has been operating in the area, since the investigation team has uncovered that the killer would be in attendance. As it turns out, Cooper is indeed the killer, and he starts realizing that his options of escape are diminishing by the minute. Not trying to raise any suspicions with his daughter, he invents excuses for his frequent exits, as he tries to collect more information on how he can evade the situation. He finally finds what he expects to be an exit strategy, when he speaks with someone from Lady Raven's team, and lies about his daughter being a leukemia survivor. She gets brought onstage, all the while Cooper is assessing his next steps. 

"Trap" starts off strongly with a premise that is fairly straightforward. The entrapment of the entrapper, in this particular case, of a methodical serial killer, who has been impossible to capture. M. Night Shyamalan manages to perfectly set up the entire situation, briefly introducing the characters, and slowly peeling away of who Cooper is, never revealing too much. The central villainous character is always presented as a cordial and affable individual, trying to escape the net that is being set on the perimeter in which he is located. However as the film moves on to its third act, that's sadly where the plot loses some of its impact and momentum, since much of the claustrophobia is lost, and some of the scenarios and interactions the director chooses to stage start losing both its authenticity and edge. Some of the plot options end up damaging the epilogue of the feature, which up to that point had been taut and impeccably staged (a bit like Wes Craven's "Red Eye" for instance). The film also suffers from the fact that most of the supporting characters have very little dimension to themselves, particularly Alison Pill's Rachel (the wife) and even Haley Mills' Dr. Josephine Grant (the profiler). Josh Hartnett's Cooper himself, could have been further realized as a character, however the whole attention devoted to Lady Raven's character (played by the director's daughter, Saleka Shyamalan), takes away from the far more interesting character introductions that keep occurring. The cast is solid, with Josh Hartnett in particular balancing a fine act of being both warm and affable, while also being cruel and menacing. The only exception to the overall cast performance is sadly Saleka Shyamalan, who fails to bring the pop star to life with conviction and with a distinct personality.  The production team is solid, with highlights going to Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's cinematography, Herdis Stefansdottir score, and Debbie DeVilla's production design. It's a watchable, but not memorable endeavor from this gifted storyteller. 

Woman of the Hour

Movie Name: Woman of the Hour
Year of Release: 2023
Director: Anna Kendrick
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Pete Holmes, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle, Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre, Dylan Schmid, Karen Holness, Denalda Williams, Jessie Fraser, Matty Finochio, Geoff Gustafson
Genre: Crime, Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Netflix

Synopsis and Review

Anna Kendrick's directorial debut premiered at the Toronto Film Festival of 2023, where it was met with solid reviews, and quickly got purchased by Netflix, who waited a full year before releasing it. The film which takes place in the late 1970s focuses its narrative on two central characters: a struggling actress in LA by the name of Sheryl, and a man by the name of Rodney Alcala, who later became well known as the Dating Game Killer. Sheryl as we find out, has been having a hard time in getting her thespian career moving forward. She goes on auditions that lead nowhere, and she's seriously considering moving out of LA. Her agent finally persuades her to go to the Dating Game, as that can help with her recognition. Rodney in the meantime wonders around, having had a colorful academic and professional background, which includes taking film classes from director Roman Polanski himself in New York. He poses as a photographer, capturing sexually suggestive photos of young women and also young men. He attacks and kills a few as we witness. He crosses paths with Sheryl when he goes to the Dating Game, where he ends up being the selected bachelor. The evening almost ends on a tragic note for Sheryl, but she manages to escape unharmed. Rodney in the interim continues his dalliances, engaging with a runaway by the name of Amy. 

"Woman of the Hour" is a film that plays well to Anna Kendrick's strengths as an actress. She has cultivated throughout her career a persona that is marked by sensical, strong and intellectually deft characters. Sheryl is no exception, since she navigates a male chauvinistic environments with aplomb and resourcefulness, including feigning the comments from the casting calls, and even the Dating Game's host himself. As a director Anna Kendrick manages to briefly illustrate some of the monstrous episodes of a serial killer's path, failing however to provide a slight insight into that character, which is where the film falters a bit. It's a film that is overly polite, and restrained, one that needs a slight jolt of character depth to make these situations that much livelier and inhabited. The film takes a stronger turn when the paths cross on the Dating Game, with that reconstitution being spot on, though when the characters are on their own paths, their journeys feel rather underdeveloped (though the episode of Rodney and Amy is quite arrowing). The cast is uniformly great, with Daniel Zovatto in particular making a compelling and menacing Rodney, with good support from Anna Kendrick, Tony Hale, and Pete Holmes. The production team is solid, including Zach Kuperstein's cinematography, Dan Romer and Mike Tucillo's score, and Brent Thomas' impeccable production design. It's a solid feature directorial debut for Anna Kendrick. 

The Fall Guy

Movie Name: The Fall Guy
Year of Release: 2024
Director: David Leitch
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke, Ben Knight, Matuse, Adam Dunn, Zara Michales
Genre: Action, Comedy
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

Director David Leitch who started off his directorial career with the trifecta of "John Wick" (he was one of the creative forces behind it), "Atomic Blonde" and "Deadpool 2", has since gone into far less interesting territory with his ventures into the "Fast and Furious" universe, followed by "Bullet Train" and now this "The Fall Guy". The film is an adaptation of the TV Show from the 1980s, from writer/producer Glen A. Larson, with the script being authored by Drew Pearce (whose most notable endeavor is co-writing "Iron Man 3" with the wonderful Shane Black). "The Fall Guy" follows the story of Colt Seavers, who is a stunt man for a major action star by the name of Tom Ryder. Colt suffers an accident performing one of the stunts, and retreats from the profession, including cutting contact with his recent girlfriend, Jody Moreno. He's suddenly brought back to that arena, when he's invited to perform stunts for Jody's directorial debut, that is taking place in Sydney, Australia. Colt suddenly realizes it wasn't Jody who invited him back, but instead it was Gail Meyer, Tom's film producer. Gail also reveals that Tom has gone missing, and has been associating himself with a rough crowd, and Colt has to find a way to uncover where he's been. As Colt probes into what has been happening, he realizes there's a lot more to the story than Gail led him to believe, all the while Jody is still very much interested in him, but since having her feelings hurt, is also lashing out at him. 

Ryan Gosling was previously in a film by the name of "The Nice Guys", written and directed by Shane Black, where his comedic timing, charm and easy chemistry with his co-stars worked on every level (in this case with Russell Crowe). It wasn't the success it deserved to be, but the energy that film had, is what is missing on this take with "The Fall Guy". The rather rudimentary script doesn't help much, but this film suffers from these innumerable winks that the characters are sharing between each other, since it's basically a film within a film, one that always thinks that it is far more clever than it actually is (you can tell the author of the script is thinking "I wonder if the audience will realize this reference or this behind the scenes reference"). The script also tries to capitalize on this marriage of screwball romantic comedy with a big action picture (for a better reference of a film within a film check the maligned John McTiernan film "Last Action Hero"), however the banter between the central characters goes on indefinitely, and a certain point it poses the question why these two annoying individuals are even at the center of the narrative. It's a film that has tone issues, not only from the different styles that have been previously mentioned, but also because it attempts to be somewhat violently graphic, in tandem with being "movie violent", aka, sanitized in its depiction of violence. In essence, this tries to be a Shane Black film, without having the wit, humor, intelligence or ability to be a Shane Black film (or at least the best of his films). It's no "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and it's definitely not "The Nice Guys", since all of the characters of this film barely exist beyond the one sentence paragraph they've been granted in the synopsis of the script. Ryan Gosling tries to make the best of this mess, but Hanna Waddingham and Stephanie Hsu are the most interesting performances in this over-bloated mess (and just a few notes on a few performers, namely Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who even after all these years is still a terrible actor, and Emily Blunt's distracting face, who seems to be getting rounder and rounder with each film she appears in). The production team is rather generic, which is a bit of a letdown for a director who has always been rather stylish in his endeavors. This is a miss for everyone involved. 

Salem's Lot

Movie Name: Salem's Lot
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Gary Dauberman
Starring: Lewis Pullman, Jordan Preston Carter, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, William Sadler, Nicholas Crovetti, Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbek, Alexander Ward, Danielle Perry, Debra Christofferson, Mike Kaz, Timothy John Smith, Joseph Marrella, Cade Woodward
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Max

Synopsis and Review

Writer/director Gary Dauberman, who has made a name for himself writing numerous scripts for "The Conjuring" universe, including the "Annabelle" films (the second of which was also his directorial debut), and also "The Nun", tackles this time around another adaptation of a Stephen King novel, following his work with Andy Muschietti's "It". The narrative taking place in the late 70s, focuses on the story of writer Ben Mears, whom we first encounter returning to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot, in order to write a book about his childhood. While looking for a place to rent, he meets Susan, whom he strikes a flirtation that soon evolves into something more serious. Susan has stayed in the town due to her father not being well (he has since passed), and has to contend with her mother who invades every aspect of her life. Also in the small town lives high school student Mark Petrie, a young boy who stands up to local bullies and who is both resourceful and strong willed, one of his teachers, a thoughtful and kind man by the name of Matt Burke, and a new arrival to town, a man by the name of Straker, hailing from Europe, who has moved into the abandoned mansion of the town, going by the name of Marsten House, who is also opening a antique store in town. Straker however has a lot more going on for him than what most people realize, as he actually is the servant for a man by the name of Kurt Barlow (his associate at the antique store), who is a vampire. Upon Barlow's arrival in town, a series of disappearances commence, starting with some of Mark's friends from school. Some of them start transforming into vampires, and an epidemic throughout the small town commences, with Ben, Susan and doctor Cody realizing they're losing ground against that force. 

Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" has been previously adapted, primarily as mini-series, the first one coming out in 1979, directed by the late Tobe Hooper, and the following in 2004, directed by Mikael Salomon. This take from Gary Dauberman, according to certain reports, has been heavily truncated by Warner Bros, the producing studio. The film was originally slated to premiere in 2022, before being released exclusively on Max. It's a film that feels slicker and more polished in terms of production values, than its prior adaptations, but one where the characters sadly don't have that much attention paid to them. Ben Mears for instance, may be the lead character, but very little attention is paid to him in terms of understanding his fascination with the town, what has been his existence thus far, and why that precise moment for his return. The same can be said for the remainder of the supporting characters: they're all just passable sketches of what a colorful town populated with different individuals can actually be. While the mini-series took their time outlining the characters and their relationships, this film shortens that narrative setting, and opts to jumpstart the fantastical aspect of the narrative. And Gary Dauberman manages to stage these aspects rather well, no doubt traces from his experience from "The Conjuring" universe, creating an efficient menacing environment, smartly playing with shadows, and making the attacks and threats that much more visceral, since they're coming from the people of the town. The cast is solid, with highlights going to Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, and Alfre Woodard, all of them bringing authenticity and nuance to their characters. The production team is top notch, including the impeccable cinematography from Michael Burgess, score from Nathan Barr and Lisbeth Scott, production design by Marc Fisichella, and costumes from Virginia Johnson. It's a watchable film, though this feels a bit like a mangled product that needed more breathing room for its characters. 

Challengers

Movie Name: Challengers
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist, Nada Despotovich, Naheem Garcia, Darnell Appling, Jake Jensen
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

The wonderful Luca Guadagnino is back, following the solid but underrated "Bones and All". "Challengers" which was originally slated to premiere in 2023, eventually premiered in April of 2024 and has since become the biggest commercial success in the director's career (at least thus far). The film is written by Justin Kuritzkes, and focuses its attention on three central characters. Those characters are Tashi Duncan, Patrick Zweig, and Art Donaldson. They all meet in 2006 when Patrick and Art win the boys' junior doubles tennis match at the US Open, and where they spot Tashi, then a rising tennis star. They flirt with each other and are about to consummate their tryst, when Tashi decides to leave. Tashi and Patrick eventually start a relationship, one that is strained by their different agendas, something that leads to a break up at the same time she suffers a serious injury and is forced to give up her dreams of playing tennis. Tashi and Art reconnect a few years later and she becomes his coach and they start a romantic relationship as well. In 2019 Tashi and Art have solidified his career, have a young daughter, but he is struggling to achieve a career Grand Slam due to injuries and his age. Hoping to reinforce Art's self confidence, Tashi enrolls him in a Challenger event , coincidentally one where Patrick is also playing. Patrick's career hasn't flourished quite as much, and he basically lives from his winnings from lower circuits. Patrick still has feelings for Tashi, and asks her to consider training him instead, whereas she wants him to throw the game in Art's favor. 

Luca Guadagnino is one of the most interesting and accomplished film directors working these days. His "I Am Love" is to this day, at least in my opinion, one of the best films of the 2010s. He has been able to craft narratives of authentic romanticism, where carnality walks hand in hand with characters realizing that while love does give new meaning to their lives, at times the choices they end making are not driven by those sentiments, but by a calculated need to lead life in a different direction. A bit like deterring a river from its natural flow, and in a different direction (such was the case of the narratives in "Call me By Your Name" and even "Bones and All"). That theme comes across in "Challengers" as well, where the romantic triangle between these characters, while peppered with trysts and lust, it also feels not entirely satisfactory resolved for all of them. And the path of life, has taken them in certain directions that has made some of their decisions feel more sensical. Out of all of Mr. Guadagnino's features (including the great remake of Dario Argento's "Suspiria" and the fantastic "A Bigger Splash"), this one feels a bit thinner in terms of the depth of the narrative and of the characters themselves (Art ends up taking a backseat to the dynamics that are happening with Tashi and Patrick, and even they feel solely focused on a specific topic and that is all). The director is able to create an impeccable spin and rhythm to the narrative by making it non-linear, and putting a stylistic perspective in how the tennis shots are captured, but the film does feel a bit more narrower in scope than any of his past endeavors. The cast is equally solid in their performances, and the production team is peerless, including Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's cinematography, Merissa Lombardo's production design, and Jonathan Anderson's costumes. It's an entertaining feature, possibly not as finely layered as his prior endeavors, but worth watching nonetheless. 

Deep Water

Movie Name: Deep Water
Year of Release: 2022
Director: Adrian Lyne
Starring: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Dash Mihok, Rachel Blanchard, Kristen Connolly, Jacob Elordi, Lil Rel Howery, Brendan Miller, Jade Fernandez, Finn Wittrock, Jeff Pope, Paul Teal, Michael Scialabba
Genre: Drama, Crime
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

Director Adrian Lyne's latest directorial release comes 20 years after the release of "Unfaithful", which garnered the wonderful Diane Lane a well deserved array of award nominations and accolades. This time around the director tackles the a script that is the adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel. The narrative focuses on the lives of Vic and Melinda who live with their young daughter Trixie in Louisiana. Vic is retired as he made a substantial amount of money by developing some chips for combat drones. He and Melinda have an arrangement as far as their marriage is concerned, where she can take lovers openly, even in their family home. The marriage however is becoming increasingly strained, with Vic's jealousy becoming more and more problematic, and Melinda's behavior also lacking a semblance of common sense. Vic admits to one of Melinda's lovers that he killed one of her previous lovers in order to scare him off. While Vic is successful in scaring the new fling off, Melinda just keeps moving from man to man, irritating Vic progressively more. Things escalate further when Melinda invites her most recent dalliance to a party with all of her friends, where the situation ends dramatically with the police being involved in the situation. But even then things are far from over, and Vic's violent behavior continues.

Sadly "Deep Water" is not the comeback Adrian Lyne deserves. This is a director who always has been able to illustrate, even if at times mildly superficially, the emotional and sexual dynamics of couples. His best features, such as "Unfaithful" and "Fatal Attraction", featured situations that were originally rooted in conventional premises, which eventually descended into something more dramatic (the throes of passion apparently justifying these cataclysmic events). "Deep Water" however fails to elicit the same type of reaction, since these are characters that as much as one doesn't want to judge their choices, seem to live in a bubble where common sense is something oblivious to them. In addition to their somewhat abhorrent behavior, there's also an obvious realization that their patterns are consistently the same, and these are characters who have no dimension whatsoever (they apparently have no ambitions, goals or direction in life, other than collecting lovers for one, and killing them for the other). Both Melinda and Vic just keep doing the same thing over and over again, and at some point one has to ask what is the intent of creating a narrative centered on characters such as these, where there's nothing redeemable and where they're both equally insufferable. What ends up saving this film from being a complete wreck, is Adrian Lyne's ability to stage calculated intimacy, something that is noticeable even in "9 1/2 Weeks" and "Indecent Proposal", though this film has issues of pacing/editing, since at some point it drags on for quite a bit. The supporting cast fares better than the leads, particularly Tracy Letts who is as usual fantastic. The production team is impeccable, particularly Eigil Bryld's cinematography, Marco Beltrami's score, and Jeannine Oppewall's production design. It's a film that looks good, but sadly one that has a mediocre narrative at its core. 

Kinds of Kindness

Movie Name: Kinds of Kindness
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamodou Athie, Joe Alwyn, Yorgos Stefanakos, Tessa Bourgeois
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

After the critical and commercial success of "Poor Things", director Yorgos Lanthimos is back, with a feature that is comprised of three episodes with some connecting threads, but for the most part functioning as separate chapters. He reunites with his Efthimis Filippou, whom he wrote "The Lobster", "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" and "Dogtooth". In the first chapter, named the "The Death of R.M.F.", we follow the story of Robert Fletcher, a man who follows every order coming from his controlling boss (and lover), Raymond. Raymond exacts orders in regard to everything in Robert's life, including whom he is married to, what he eats, when he has intercourse, literally everything. Things start going awry when Raymond tells Robert to crash his car into R.M.F.'s in order to kill him, and Robert fails to do so, only suffering minor injuries, the same going for the victim. When Robert refuses Raymond's orders to do so again, the latter is angered and fires Robert. From then on, everything in Robert's life spirals downward, forcing him to make some tough decisions. The second chapter named "R.M.F. is Flying", follows the story of Daniel, a police officer who is mourning and suffering with the disappearance of his wife Liz, a marine biologist. When she returns, Daniel is struck by how different habits and even physiological aspects of Liz are different from her wife. He believes this Liz to be another woman, and this paranoia starts eroding his mental health, until a dramatic event occurs while he's on patrol with his partner. His life at home starts taking a dark turn, and he starts asking Liz to perform certain actions, which he believes will prove that she is not his wife after all. The third chapter named "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich", focuses on Emily and Andrew, who are part of a sex cult. The leaders of the cult, Omi and Aka, demand exclusivity of intercourse, with them alone. Emily and Andrew are currently looking for a woman they believe can reanimate the dead. They eventually come across a woman named Rebecca, who states her twin sister Ruth may well be the person they are looking for. Everything takes a dark turn however, when Joseph, Emily's husband, invites for a visit, drugs her drink, and rapes her while she's unconscious. Emily is expelled from the cult, but decides to buy her way back in, by uncovering if Ruth is indeed who they're looking for.

Creating films in chapters is always challenging, since for all intended purposes it feels as if the director is in reality creating three distinct films, and then trying to woven them together. "Kinds of Kindness" goes back to Yorgos Lanthimos' tone of surreal observations of life, something he did so well in his prior original films that have not been the adaptation of other people's literary works. They're all narratives that feel extreme, but only barely, since so much of what he touches upon harks to the needs of human beings of belonging, of being loved, rewarded and seen by others. These chapters do fall into the trappings of being inhabited by characters that lack certain dimension, which is where the film mostly falters. The tone of balancing a philosophical/ideological statement with believable and fully realized characters isn't really there, even if all chapters are portrayed by an excellent set of actors. Willem Dafoe's characters, much like Hong Chau's are paper thin, even if they are indeed meant to illustrate a concept or humanize a certain type of behaviors. These chapters however, are demonstrative of a writer/director who is able to create a universe of its own, one that is very vivid, even if at times most of that universe may seem repelling. These are all characters that are raw, at times lacking nuance, but they still do demonstrate that stripping away from some sociological traits and polish, everyone is longing for a sense of belonging, even if that comes at a cost for their own decision-making and autonomy. The cast is uniformly great, particularly Jesse Plemons who gets a chance to shine in three very different characters, with apt support from Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau. The cinematography from Robbie Ryan is solid, as is the score from Jerskin Fendrix. This may not be for everyone, but it is worth watching. 

Devil

Movie Name: Devil
Year of Release: 2010
Director: John Erick Dowdle
Starring: Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Geoffrey Arend, Jenny O'Hara, Bojana Novakovic, Matt Craven, Bokeem Woodbine, Jacob Vargas, Joshua Peace, Joe Cobden, Zoie Palmer, Vincent Laresca, Rudy Webb
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

Director John Erick Dowdle made a splash with his film "Quarantine", which was a remake of the Spanish film "REC", before tackling this project whose story was authored by M. Night Shyamalan. The narrative follows a series of strangers who find themselves stranded on an elevator. Those five strangers are comprised of a temporary security guard who has a slight case of claustrophobia, a mechanic/former Marine, a mattress salesman, a young woman going through some marital issues, and a slightly older woman whom we don't know much about. The security team of the building lets the individuals know that someone is looking into what is happening and causing the malfunction. One of those security guards thinks the Devil is involved, when he notices a strange disruption on the security monitor. As the lights in the elevator start going off unexpectedly, weird occurrences occur. The young woman, who is named Sarah, suddenly has a bite mark on her back, and the mattress salesman has blood on his hands. Detective Bowden who is on sight as a result of a suicide that just took place, is called to the scene. He's watching through the security parafernalia what's taking place in the elevator, where tensions are rising. When the lights go out again, there's noise heard, and by the time they return, the mattress salesman is dead. The remaining individuals suspect each other, while the religious security guard in vigilance suspects the situation will only get worse. As the detective and his partner go through the sign-in sheet to identify who is inside the elevator, they get a better notion of who those people are, and all of them are more than meets the eye.

"Devil" has a positive thing going for it, which is essentially the claustrophobic setting in which most of the action takes place. This allows for the director to craft a tale of paranoia and fear, that escalates as the killings start occurring. While this premise could have turned out into a taut Hitchcockian thriller or even an Agatha Christie-inspired kind of tale, it does not veer in that direction. It goes slightly in a more Paranormal Activity/The Conjuring direction, without much subtlety to it. For a while the narrative tries to unfold as a procedural type, but once the big reveal occurs, it crumbles most of what the film had set in motion. Most of the problems don't lie solely with the narrative twist, but also with the fact that this film is populated with puppets without a semblance of dimension to them. There's not much of a difference between the barely there characters here and the ones Jack Traven/Keanu Reeves saved in the opening scenes of Jan de Bont's "Speed" (and at least those knew they were superfluous for the narrative being told). This film has an essential problem of not knowing which lane to pick: is it a supernatural thriller, or a thriller focused on a killer who is impossible to identify? This prevents the film or its director from fully embracing the tone or nature of the narrative that is being told. The cast is solid, with high marks going for the underrated Chris Messina, who has good support from Matt Craven, Jacob Vargas, and Logan Marshall-Green. The production team is solid, including the fantastic cinematography from the great Tak Fujimoto, score from Fernando Velazquez, and production design from Martin Whist. It's watchable, but also quickly forgettable.