Devil (2010 Film)

''Devil'' is a 2010 American supernatural horror film directed by John Erick Dowdle. The screenplay by Brian Nelson was derived from a story by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Geoffrey Arend, Bojana Novakovic, Jenny O'Hara, and Bokeem Woodbine, the film revolves around five strangers who become trapped in an elevator, with the Devil suspected to be among them.

''Devil'' was released on September 17, 2010, by Universal Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but grossed $63.4 million on a budget of $10 million. It is the first and only installment of ''The Night Chronicles'', a planned trilogy of standalone horror films produced by Shyamalan.

Plot

A narrator (later revealed to be Ramirez) relates a story about his childhood, where his mother would explain to him and his siblings the circumstances that surround the Devil roaming the Earth, searching for the souls of unrepentant people to take to Hell. A man jumps to his death from a Philadelphia skyscraper, leaving a suicide note about the Devil's approaching presence.

Shortly thereafter, an elevator in the same skyscraper becomes stuck with five people inside: a temporary security guard, a mechanic/former Marine, a mattress salesman, a young woman, and an elderly woman. While a repairman attempts to fix the elevator, one of the security guards, Ramirez, watching through the security camera, sees a face on the monitor he believes is the Devil while the lights flicker, but his partner Lustig doubts it. When the lights return, the young woman has a bite mark on her back and the salesman has blood on his hands. Detective Bowden, who was investigating the earlier suicide and grappling with the death of his wife and son from a hit-and-run five years earlier, is called to the scene.

The lights go out again; when they return, the mattress salesman's jugular vein is impaled with a broken mirror shard, killing him and rendering the elevator a crime scene. The passengers begin to suspect each other, while the security guards monitoring through the camera talk to them one-way via the speaker, as they cannot hear the passengers. As the group argues, the repairman falls to his death on top of the elevator, terrifying the occupants. Ramirez unsuccessfully tries to convince the detectives that this could be "the Devil's Meeting.” An unknown woman attempts to enter the building but is barred, and she goes around to the back.

Bowden and his partner use the sign-in sheet and elevator camera to identify the group. The temporary guard is identified as Ben Larson, who has a criminal record of assault and beating someone into a coma; the mattress salesman is Vince McCormick, who lost many people their assets through a Ponzi scheme; the young woman is Sarah Caraway, who is married to a rich man and plans on leaving him after stealing his money, as she has done before; the elderly woman is identified as Jane Kowski, who was caught on the lobby security camera stealing a woman's wallet. The mechanic and former Marine cannot be identified due to him not signing in and leaving a bag in the lobby bathroom, making him the main suspect. When the lights flicker again, the older woman is seen hanging from the ceiling by her neck via a light cable.

Ben and the Marine get in a fight, each suspecting the other as the killer. Sarah tells Ben to kill the Marine before he kills them and Ben attacks the Marine, but Bowden comes back to the control room and defuses the situation by having the passengers put their hands on the wall. Lustig goes into the basement to shut off the power where the firefighters are drilling into the wall. He notices a shorted wire in a puddle on the floor and attempts to move it, electrocuting himself.

After learning Sarah's husband owns the building's security company, they suspect the husband hired Ben to kill Sarah and that he killed the others to cover it. However, the subsequent power outage ends with Ben's neck broken. The Marine and Sarah suspect each other, arming themselves with mirror shards; the lights go out again, and Sarah's throat is slit.

The unknown woman from before is brought into the control room. She tells them that the Marine is her fiancé, and tells the detectives that his name is Tony Janekowski. The detectives realize he signed in after all, and that "Jane Kowski"—the elderly woman's presumed identity—was not real, as the Devil manifests in the form of the elderly woman. When Tony says he deserves to be punished, the Devil screams at him and causes the elevator to fall several floors and suddenly stop, causing the repairman's radio to fall into the elevator cab. Tony grabs the radio and confesses to the hit-and-run that killed Bowden's family; unable to claim Tony's soul due to the admission, the Devil vanishes and Bowden is able to get into the elevator and takes Tony into custody.

While en route, Bowden reveals to Tony that it was his family that he killed in that accident. Much to his own surprise, he forgives Tony. Ramirez concludes the film by saying that his mother would comfort him and his siblings after her scary story, telling them not to worry, because if the Devil is real, then God is real too.

Cast

* Chris Messina as Detective Bowden
* Logan Marshall-Green as Tony Janekowski, The Mechanic and Former Marine
* Geoffrey Arend as Vince McCormick, Salesman
* Bojana Novakovic as Sarah Caraway, Young Woman
* Jenny O'Hara as Jane Kowski, Old Woman/Devil
* Bokeem Woodbine as Ben Larson, Guard
* Matt Craven as Lustig, Building Security
* Jacob Vargas as Ramirez, Building Security
* Joseph Cobden as Dwight, Elevator Repairman
* Caroline Dhavernas as Elsa Nahai
* Joshua Peace as Detective Markowitz
* Zoie Palmer as Cheryl
* Vincent Laresca as Henry

Production

In October 2008 M. Night Shyamalan and Media Rights Capital announced that ''Devil'' would be made with the Dowdle brothers as directors and Brian Nelson as screenwriter.

Filming started on October 26, 2009, in Toronto with John Erick Dowdle as director and Drew Dowdle as an executive producer. There was additional shooting for the film several months later in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Joe Cobden had to train for four months to prepare for his role. He said that preparing for his death scene, which took four days to shoot, was the hardest scene to shoot except for the introduction and closing.

Story sources

John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle said that the movie is based on a Devil's Meeting, which is a premise that the Devil is on Earth to test evildoers by tormenting them. Shyamalan acknowledged that the basic structure of the story was "an Agatha Christie nod." In Christie's 1939 novel ''And Then There Were None'', as in ''Devil'', a group of people with guilty pasts are trapped in an isolated area and begin to die one by one.

Release

The film was set to have a release date on September 17, 2010. The film's trailer debuted online on July 13, 2010.

Critical response

The film was not screened to critics in advance. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Dennis Harvey of ''Variety'' gave ''Devil'' a lukewarm review, saying "Like the solid B-thrillers of yore that often outshone A-pics topping double bills, M. Night Shyamalan-produced ''Devil'' is nothing very special or original, but it gets the job done briskly and economically."

Home media

''Devil'' was released to DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 21, 2010.

Unproduced sequels

''Devil'' was intended to be the first of ''The Night Chronicles'' trilogy, which involved the supernatural within modern urban society. In June 2010, Shyamalan announced the second film titled ''12 Strangers'', later changed to ''Reincarnate''. The film was about a jury discussing a case dealing with the supernatural. Chris Sparling was set to write the script and Daniel Stamm would direct. Shyamalan also confirmed that the story for the currently untitled third installment was going to be taken from the abandoned sequel to ''Unbreakable''. As of 2020, neither film has been produced, but his unused ''Unbreakable'' sequel idea later became the basis for ''Split''.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Devil (Film)
2010 films
2010 horror films
American supernatural horror films
American horror thriller films
2010 horror thriller films
Films shot in Toronto
Films shot in New York City
The Devil in film
Films set in Philadelphia
MRC (company) films
Blinding Edge Pictures films
Universal Pictures films
Films set in elevators
Films directed by John Erick Dowdle
Films produced by M. Night Shyamalan
Films produced by Sam Mercer
Films with screenplays by M. Night Shyamalan
Films scored by Fernando Velázquez
2010s English-language films
2010s American films
English-language horror thriller films