The Devil Within
Year: 2010
Director: Tom Hardy
Stars: Elizabeth DiPrinzio, Sarah Kathryn Harrison, Bill Oberst Jr.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Seminal Films
Running Time: 78 Mins
Finally, a horror/thriller that I reviewed that doesn’t involve people getting tortured, as the last three horror films that I reviewed, which it’s main purpose is to make you nauseated. Thankfully, it’s not the case with “The Devil Within”.
The film takes place in the Hollywood hills, where Serina is celebrating her eighteen birthday. Before the party, she and her friends are spooked when a street preacher tell them that doom is coming to them. They ignore these warnings and decide to have a night of sex, drugs, and alcohol with all her high school friends. Soon Serina’s party is going to come to a crashing end, as she finds out that the high school principal has a sick fixation over her and someone is killing all the guest as her birthday party is becoming one big bloodbath.
In the beginning of “The Devil Within”, I thought I was going be in for a film that has annoying teenagers and characters that I wasn’t going to be interested in. Even though the film has a couple of flaws, this was still an interesting thriller.
First time director Tom Hardy does good job with the direction here. One of the things that I liked about the direction was the way he was able to build up suspense with the way that he shot some the scenes. Even though, this film becomes predictable by the half way point, Hardy has a sense to try to keep your interest by creating tension in the way some of the scenes were shot. That what kept my interest. Hardy also does a good job in the way that he handles his actors performances. I thought that was one of the keys to why I enjoyed the film. The performances were controlled enough that you knew what characters you were going to like and what characters you thought were creepy and annoying to the point that you could care less about them. It helped get over the major flaw that this screenplay has.
Speaking of the screenplay, it was good for the most part. One of the things that Matt Dean does well with this screenplay, he sets the character up very well. He sets them up, so that everything in the end doesn’t come off as silly or doesn’t make sense with that character in particular. It doesn’t leave you with the feeling that the writer is just throwing stuff in for no apparent reason. I also though, Dean not turning this into a an annoying teens film or a film full of religious themes. It could’ve gone in either direction, but Dean is smart enough to make this story as your typical slasher film, instead of those things. The only thing that I had a problem had was the way that the killer was predictable. Dean doesn’t go a good job in making too obvious because you know its going to be either this character or that character, by the time that the party started. That has to do with the fact that he gives away too much, when developing these characters. This hurts this film, because the rest of this film is four star material. It’s a shame that it was predictable, as this should have been a very good film, instead of a good film.
“The Devil Within” overcomes it major flaw to become a good and entertaining thriller that worth a late night view.
Review Rating: Three Stars
0 comments
Post a Comment