He may be in the elevator, but he's not in the details

Going down?
(Image: Filmonic)

Five people become trapped in an elevator. This is not a random event; those trapped in the lift are there for a reason, just as there is a reason why there is a specific audience - mainly detective Bowden (Chris Messina) - to witness what happens through a security camera. One of the people trapped in the lift is the devil. The devil is on earth, we are told, and sometimes he assumes human form to torment souls before claiming them for eternity.

That's the high-concept premise for John Erick Dowdle's "Devil" (2010), a horror feature developed by none other than M. Night Shyamalan himself as the first installment of his Night Chronicles, which deal with tales of urban occurrences of the supernatural. After establishing the premise, it becomes shockingly clear that now that everyone's trapped in the elevator with the devil, the film has nowhere to go. By "nowhere", I mean that the film is a terrible attempt at horror that suffers from badly drawn characters, overexplanationitis, unintentionally laughable dialogue ("I need you to stop telling campfire stories and get your head in the game!") and, worst of all, utter predictability. You'll be able to figure out the reason - sorry, Reason - for the events right from the film's opening scene. The 'reveal' where the film finally announces who the devil is will come as no surprise to anyone who's seen similar genre movies or read Agatha Christie's famous works.  

The film starts ominous enough, as the Philadelphia cityscape is flipped upside down and a suicide opens the way for the devil to start the proceedings. But from that point onward, there is no tension, and nothing to be scared of. Earlier in his career Shyamalan nearly perfected the use of off-screen space to evoke a sense of doom and danger. For some reason, "Devil" thinks it can do better, and now everything interesting happens in the dark. Usually I'd commend movies that invite the imagination to co-construct what's happening on screen, but in "Devil's" case, it's plain lazy. The film's idea of the devil is tired as well; the idea never crosses from absurdity into something cinematically convincing.

As a moderately budgeted, ambitious American horror, I judge "Devil" by the standards I expect from mediocre Hollywood hokum, and it fails miserably. It is a contender for the year's most tedious film. The devil isn't scary when he's a lame plot mechanism, especially since the idea has been so thoroughly secularised it cannot be taken seriously. Fortunately, there's nothing like a little "Drag Me To Hell" to wash the bad taste of the "Devil" out of your mouth.

[Please note: the comments below contain major spoilers.]