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OK, I know there is a lot of hate for M. Night Shamalayan on this board, but I will say that this is the best movie he has done in a long, long time.  Way better than THE HAPPENING or THE VILLAGE; definitely better than LADY IN THE WATER.

The narration that arcs through the movie repeats an old folk tale: that sometimes the Devil will come to earth to torment the souls of the damned BEFORE they die.  These apparitions are always initiated by a suicide, and involve the damned being trapped in an inescapable circumstance, with one individual who is not what they seem to be.

Now the story opens in New York, with a suicide jumping out of the window of a high rise and landing on the roof of a large truck.  The impact kicks the truck into neutral and it rolls away from the building, which makes investigators initially uncertain as to where the body came from.  By the time they back trace it to the building, a couple blocks away, the workday has already begun, and five individuals hop into an express elevator to get to various upper floors.

Then the elevator stalls out for no reason.   The lights begin to flicker, and tempers begin to flare.  But when one of the elevator occupands suffers a serious wound in the back while the lights are out, things take a turn for the sinister.

This is a good, suspenseful morality tale that is definitely worth watching.  Even if you don't like Shamalyan's films, I think you might like this one.  You won't look at an elevator the same way for awhile . . .

This film was alright, I'd give it a 3/5.



Starts well, but the tension went pretty fast I thought. I wanted the Devil to be in the lift, but also using his powers of darkness throughout the city. But he didn't. Unless stormy coulds count as evil powers, if so, he's not much of a threat.


I liked the optomistic, if totally obvious, ending though.


It does suffer from the fact that its very obvious who the Devil is.

Well this wasn't directed by Shymalan, so that's probably a reason why it was better.

[I actually like Symalan, but think he has potential to do better...]

I enjoyed Devil quite a bit. Nice 'n' short, good tension, and watching it in the theater alone was kind of creepy.  Plus, how often do we get to have Satan as the antagonist in films anymore (demonic possession films aside)?  One of the better recent horror films I've seen, although I don't take much time to watch modern horror films these days.

Haven't seen Devil but didn't Shyamalan just act as producer for this one?  I thought he didn't write or direct.

From what I hear, Devil is the first in a loosely-connected series of movies he's producing, mostly to give up-and-comers who've caught his eye a shot in the director's chair on a major release.  If that's so, he must be an all-right guy, regardless of how crappy his own movies have become.

I saw the trailer for this movie and it looked good.  Will have to put on the NetFlix queue.

Later,

John