{"id":6120,"date":"2013-02-07T14:27:47","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T19:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6120"},"modified":"2013-02-07T14:27:47","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T19:27:47","slug":"dvd-devil-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6120","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Devil (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label: Universal\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: December 21 ,2010<\/p>\n

Genre: Horror \/ Supernatural<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Five seemingly disparate people become trapped in an elevator, with one member possibly being playful Lucifer himself.<\/p>\n

Special Features: 3 Deleted Scenes \/ 3 Promo Featurettes: \u201cThe Story\u201d + \u201cThe Deveil\u2019s Meeting\u201d + \u201cThe Night Chronicles\u201d<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Review:<\/p>\n

Perhaps inspired by Clive Barker\u2019s own \u2018presents\u2019 shingle, and maybe Dark Castle\u2019s prolific roster of (generally terrible) horror films, M. Night Shyamalan thought he could set up his own branded franchise \u2013 the \u201cNight Chronicles\u201d \u2013 and germinate films from his seeded original ideas. As one of his producers states in one of the DVD\u2019s three blatantly promotional featurettes, the hope was the film series would be worthy of comparison to The Twilight Zone<\/strong> and Alfred Hitchcock Presents<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The comparisons aren\u2019t crazy \u2013 Shyamalan\u2019s films are hybrids of Hitchcockian mystery with twist finales typical of TZ \u2013 but not unlike idol Steven Spielberg\u2019s own efforts to franchise his \u2018magic touch\u2019, Shyamalan must have realized running a new series is a lot more complicated than it seems.<\/p>\n

Spielberg had an entire department at his Amblin Entertainment<\/a> division to exploit \u2018the touch\u2019 to family films, TV series, and other feature films with Spielberg as creative control director, and that\u2019s certainly the kind of system Devil<\/strong> was intended to start. The funny thing is Devil<\/strong> feels like a solid, old-fashion anthology TV movie, with an almost classical style that\u2019s refreshingly bereft of ADD editing, sadism, and heavy gore. It\u2019s obvious it was designed to be sold to a PG audience, but it\u2019s pleasantly surprising how well the concept for Devil<\/strong> was developed into a script where a group of characters trapped in a confined space create the bulk of the film\u2019s tension as things go increasingly wrong due to supernatural badness.<\/p>\n

The story is very simple: five seemingly unrelated characters become trapped in an elevator, and while efforts to free the group become more stressed, the detective called to investigate a supposedly unrelated suicide begins to realize there are indeed strange connections among the trapped passengers, and he has to figure it all out before the increasingly frequent power blackouts yield another dead passenger.<\/p>\n

Devil<\/strong> is essentially a TV movie, if not a low budget film, and its brief running time \u2013 80 mins. with credits<\/em> \u2013 may have been a reason it didn\u2019t wholly click with audiences wanting the value added combo of implied terror in the taut trailers, and a running time with more scope. The DVD\u2019s deleted scenes \u2013 character intros \u2013 are too oblique and unnecessary, making the 80 mins. the film\u2019s proper natural running time. It\u2019s a good example of how spending time on characters, dialogue, and developed conflicts & twists creates more tension than extravagant special effects montages, and the supernatural element is nicely integrated as normalcy quirks evaporates, and the detective starts to believe a superstitious security guard.<\/p>\n

Situated in Philadelphia but clearly shot entirely on location at Toronto\u2019s Bay Adelaide Centre (city natives will immediately spot familiar fences and building facades), director John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine<\/strong>, The Poughkeepsie Tapes<\/strong>) and writer Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night<\/a><\/strong>, Hard Candy<\/a><\/strong>) incorporated a lot of simple factual and procedural details which give excellent contrast towards the mounting weirdness, and the cast of top-level American and a smattering of local talent (veteran Matt Craven and TV\u2019s Lost Girl<\/strong> Zioe Palmer) are well-chosen for their everyman \/ everywoman roles. Tak Fujimoto\u2019s scope compositions are elegant, and Fernando Velazquez\u2019 brooding score comes in only when necessary, accenting dramatic points at the right junctures.<\/p>\n

Universal\u2019s extras are rather paltry, though. Besides the deleted scenes, there are a handful of featurettes that contain more repeated film footage than actual content, so viewers wanting finer details on its making, genesis, and inspiration are cheated by what are essentially promo spots for TV and web dissemination. The extras are really about getting viewers familiar with the Night Chronicles brand name, but the irony is the \u2018myriad\u2019 stories Shyamalan says are swirling within his head have yet to go beyond Devil<\/strong>. It\u2019s a pity the supposedly two other stories haven\u2019t been realized, as this debut release is superior in writing than most of the Dark Castle rubbish which has littered screens large and small for almost 14 years.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ D . Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good Label: Universal\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: December 21 ,2010 Genre: Horror \/ Supernatural Synopsis: Five seemingly disparate people become trapped in an elevator, with one member possibly being playful Lucifer himself. Special Features: 3 Deleted Scenes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1842,1843,1839,1840,1841,1844],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1AI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6120"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6124,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions\/6124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}