Today my friend and I were planning on going to see The Town. You know, that flick where nuns throw grenades and for once, Ben Affleck isn’t terrible. I saw this movie with my parents and this time, I wanted to see it with my buddy. Now my friend is 16, and thanks to super fine small print, i can only get him in with me if I’m 21. This was much to my dismay indeed, so after arguing with the clerk and not wanting to run into OVS kids on the Promenade, we tentatively decided to see DEVIL by M. Night Shyamalan.

Now, we realized that this was a PG-13 horror flick which basically meant it was a “P word” movie to us teenagers, and it was from a director who has been on the decline ever since THE 6th SENSE. The movie was a thriller about how Satan supposedly takes human form to punish the damned before taking their souls. This was something that we understood from the narrative and didn’t feel the need for the small spanish security guard to mention over and over again. We get it, the Devil is something that isn’t to be messed with, but when mentioned too much, it becomes a dry and useless redundancy.

The story was interesting and consuming during the beginning and as it made it’s way into the middle, not because of any plot, but because the movie was trippy as hell and the effects were awesome. Mix in the terror factor and we have ourselves a decent horror flick.

Now we get to know the characters one by one, they are all in the wrong place at seemingly the right time for this movie plot to be realized and for Satan to have his “Devil’s Meeting” as the security guard called it. They were all in the right elevator and were the right people to annoy the hell out of each other and were therefore, perfect candidates for Satan’s dirty work. They have committed desertion, thievery, assault, murder, and blackmail. We also begin to like and dislike the characters as we work our way further in. Even though they are all scumbags anyway. It’s about which one we hate the least and wanna see get badly hurt as opposed to killed.

As it turns out, the head cop who is watching the camera in the elevator every step of the way has a past of his own. 5 years ago, his wife and son were killed by a drunk driver. So we get a taste of his story as well as the characters in the movie. All of the characters are mysteries to one extent or another, but we get by on basic details.

Here’s where the movie starts to lose it. Three of the people in the elevator have died and seemingly no help is coming. Every time the light turns out, someone dies at the hands of the Devil. The ex-soldier Tony Jancowski and the good looking female black mailer, Sarah Caraway, are left alive. Sarah was a black mailer who had taken her husband’s money, now she was going to leave him. His last name is Caraway, as is the security company of the building, so they think the husband is trying to kill her. This sounds like a reach for plot. Then again with MNS, we are all victim to plot twists. They are paranoid of each other and right when the reach a truce to put down their weapons, the lights go out. When they come back on, the black mailer is dying and the man is still alive. As he tries to save her, a woman in the elevator, named Jane Cowski, who we all thought died half the movie ago, comes back to life and tells him that it’s his turn to die.

Jancowski confesses to the killing and for some reason after that he is spared. This contradicts the plot because earlier, the little spanish security guard says that Satan kills everyone, the last in front of who he loved most. His fiance shows up for the last 20 minutes of the movie and is briefly mentioned, so this i found to be unnecessary. At the end, Jancowski lives, The head detective finally finds closure and knows who the murderer was, and overall, the ending leaves us unsatisfied. It was as though MNS took the easy way out by going to the cliche ending with the cliche quote, “If the Devil is real, then God must also be real.” I feel they should have just killed everyone and left with a bang to let us know the Devil still lurks among us. Just like THE OMEN.

In closing the film was entertaining as hell (pun absolutely intended) when it wasn’t reaching for plot. I feel they tried to hard and it showed when MNS tried so hard to throw in one of his signature twists.

B-