Devil
B+

I have always been an M. Night Shyamalan apologist, but apologies are wearing thin these days.  I still remember excitedly purchasing my ticket for Lady in the Water and sitting down in the theater anticipating what must surely be my favorite director's most ambitious and rewarding story to date.  Then I was subjected to a sustained bullwhipping unlike I'd ever experienced.  It's the same feeling I would get in a school play when things are going horribly wrong.  I'd feel embarrassed for the actors but also for myself somehow.  Maybe it's because of how easily I shunned all critics and naysayers and waltzed right into the lion's mouth.   I'm no slave to Rottentomatoes and Metacritic.  I've loved a host of movies everyone else hated.  Watching Lady in the Water was like watching something I once loved get beaten to death and then rise from the grave, a pale shell of its former self and lumber around for a bit until it finally lays down and dies.  Y'know, like in zombie films, when a guy's wife gets bitten and turns into a zombie and he doesn't want to shoot her in the head because he still loves her and he can't accept that she's dead and his friends are all like, "It's not her!  There is nothing of her left!  She's dead!  Come on, we gotta get outta here!"  I love Night, don't get me wrong.  His style is good old Twilight Zone fare that is poised to engage the heart and mind in equal measure.  But grassmonkeys?  Come on Night.  A man can only take so many lashes.

At one time I thought the answer was for him to back up and direct a Harry Potter movie.  He was certainly offered it more than a few times, but he decided to make the Crappening, uh I mean the Happening instead.  Again, I've not seen it but if any of you think I should, feel free to call me out on that.  No one?  Really?  Okay, I'll go on then.  Then I caught wind that he would be adapting Avatar: The Last Airbender, an excellent little Nickelodeon show that I happened to just love.  Well, rumor has it he's pooped on that one as well and heaven help me I just can't bring myself to go see the thing.  I want to support you, Night, but I just don't want to sit there and feel embarrassed for you.

Well, after seeing Devil, I think we've all found the solution for Night's slump.  Think up ideas and then don't write and direct them.  At least not for a while.  The Night Chronicles is a series of films that are based on Night's ideas and given to other writers and directors to bring to life.  It's the first time Night has ever trusted anyone besides himself to bring his vision to life and it's about #$&@ time.  No one clings to the his writer/director status as closely as Mr. Shyamalan and no one (according to Michael Bamberger's unintentionally hilarious book "The Man Who Heard Voices") is as unfriendly to creative input.  Come on, chum!  Everybody's doing the whole creative process thing!  You could like get people together and work as a...team!  How's that crazy idea sound?  Guillermo del Toro does it!  If you do it right you can even have people thinking that you directed a great film that you didn't.  I can't count how many times I've heard "My favorite Guillermo Del Toro movie is The Orphanage."

Anyway, after that long rant, Devil is a great little film.  It does exactly what it sets out to do, deliver a feature-length Twilight Zone episode to chill your blood and make you jump.  I don't generally attend much horror fare, so I may be a little more sensitive than the average moviegoer, but I was thoroughly chilled.  Five people caught in an elevator with Satan is a premise oddly well-suited to my own lifestyle since I work in a downtown office and take elevators every day and I confess my hairs stand on end every time I step into one.

The best thing about this film is it has some heart.  Flat as the characters were, I was very fond of them by the end of the film.  These aren't stupid teenagers who are asking to die.  There's a real sense of good and evil here and the resulting struggles plays out with high stakes.  The film is getting a lot of flak for its religious themes, as if the addition of a religious element into a plot is an automatic cop-out.  But why?  In a film like Devil, thematic complexity would only serve to obscure its thrills, and religious overtones are the perfect notes to hit.  Plus, somebody might actually find it compelling.  I did.  Maybe some moviegoers out there are still religious.  Anyway, it's bad form just to call something stupid because it's 'religious', you need to tell me why those themes fail, not call them dumb just by virtue of what they are.

The thing I liked most about Devil was that it has a lot of heart for a horror movie.  There is a clear enough sense of good and evil throughout that one can actually pity the characters involved.  Pity is a necessary component to fear.  You want them to come out all right, you don't want the bad guy to win.  It's by-the-numbers drama , but after so much nihilism in the movie world we need some reeducation in the basics.

Devil is a good Twilight Zone episode.  I'll be looking forward to the rest of the Night Chronicles and I fully support my dear Night's first venture into the 'producer' role.  Who knows, maybe he'll learn somthing.