 | Watch Devil's Due (2014) online Run time: 89 min Rating: 4.0 Genres: Horror Stars: Allison Miller, Zach Gilford, Sam Anderson |
| Storyline After a mysterious, lost night on their honeymoon, a newlywed couple finds themselves dealing with an earlier-than-planned pregnancy. While recording everything for posterity, the husband begins to notice odd behavior in his wife that they initially write off to nerves, but, as the months pass, it becomes evident that the dark changes to her body and mind have a much more sinister origin. Written by 20th Century Fox | |
| Plot Keywords: honeymoon, taxi driver, party, implied forced insemination, eiffel tower at night | |
| Details: | |
| Box Office Budget: $7,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $9,145,358 (USA) (17 January 2014) Gross: $15,818,967 (USA) (14 March 2014) | |
First of all, I am a big fan of the found footage supernatural/horror genre and love watching even the lesser acclaimed films. I am the type of viewer that draws the positives out of a very flawed film and enjoy it. So I expected to enjoy something out of this at the very least.
ReplyDeleteMy god, what a tediously insufferable film this turned out to be.
There is absolutely no innovation or any attempt to try something new. It is so painfully boring.
The concept idea was very promising which is basically a found footage rendition of The Omen or Rosemary's baby. However, this film is so dire at engaging the audience due to the most irritable protagonist I have ever seen so far in a found footage type movie. For more than half of the movie, we are tortured with the sickly saccharine antics of a doting husband on his newly wed wife. There is no natural humour to ease the torment and worse for a film of this type, there were actually no scares until the last act.
As I said, I am the type of film goer that draws the positives and try enjoy that. So are there any? Well, there is a dog that was amusing for 2 seconds but even he looked bored, thereafter. OK, there is a bit more positives. You do get a predictable climax in an attempt to "reward " us for our eternal patience which was efficiently executed but without any unique vision or flair, just the usual creep around corridors and..."boo" oh it was just the dog sort of thing. The actors do perform well but the material they have to work with is revolting.
At the end of the credits there is a piece of text explaining that this film created 200,000 jobs. Well that was nice to know and the only bit that made me feel good knowing that at least it gave a lot of people work but then I wonder if stating that was an indirect apology and their justification to make this dreadfully boring movie?
TO be fair, the film is as polished as it can be for a found footage genre but its all pointless if it fails to engage us in the narrative.
If you haven't seen many horror films or supernatural films such as Paranormal Activity etc, then perhaps you might enjoy this more as long as you can stomach the vomit inducing newly weds for half of the movie.
I give this a 3/10 rating, mostly for the dog that looked fairly convincing in not wanting to be in the movie. Get a new agent doggy, you deserve better.
During their honeymoon, newlyweds Samantha and Zach couldn't be happier, however upon waking up one morning, they have no recollection of what happened the night before. It isn't too long after returning home that the happy couple find out they are having a child. But during a time of what should be pure happiness soon turns into a nightmare as the couple find themselves being watched and Samantha begins exhibiting strange behavior.
ReplyDeleteDevil's Due is yet another entry in the found-footage genre. The film can be considered an almost younger generation and found-footage version of Rosemary's Baby. However, this film has no chance in hell (no pun intended) of reaching the status of the classic horror film. It doesn't even stand a chance of reaching Paranormal Activity status. The story may be interesting, but the film itself is just plain boring. There is no intensity and no atmosphere whatsoever. Throughout the film we just see Samantha becoming more and more hostile with random and clichéd jump scares thrown in. And a lot of the creepy moments end up being humorous than anything. By the time we reach the climax of the film where (as usual) all of the real action occurs, it's over before it even begins.
Despite the film's boring outer layer, we are given some pretty good performances by our two leads. Zach Gilford brings a lot of charm to the role of Zach, at the first of the film he's the goofball husband that everyone will seem to adore. But when things start getting serious we see Gilford switch gears into the concerned husband and he does a fairly good job of it. Allison Miller plays Zach's wife Samantha. Like Gilford, Miller shows the sweet and innocent side of her character and we ultimately love her too, but when she needs to show Samantha's gradual change of behavior, she has a few moments where she could have gave it more of a boost, but otherwise she gives it what she can and it's satisfactory enough. The two also have great chemistry together, which also helps the audience care for and root for the two characters.
Devil's Due may be a huge snooze fest and won't leave a mark on the found-footage genre, but it at least has two decent lead actors to keep it from being a total disaster.
My Rating: 3/10
This was really deceptive marketing and hype that drew me into this movie. I am very sorry I went. The acting, directing, production design, continuity, editing and of course the story, screen writing and execution were just abysmal. There was nothing of quality in this film. The characters were stupid, the camera work was jarring "handheld reality TV" nonsense and on top of it all, the plot was told in a far superior manner by Roman Polanski in "Rosemary's Baby" forty years ago! It just shows that with some production money, a digital camera and some reality-TV "Blair Witch"/"Paranormal Activity"-type marketing approach, you can sell any kind of garbage to the American public. I urge you not to support this film, or any future endeavours of anyone involved with this project (cast, crew, director or screenwriters)....
ReplyDeleteAbsolute Dogsh*t is a term that cannot be used enough to describe this movie. I hated the characters (especially the tw*t of a husband), the stupid shaky-cam, the "scares", the pathetic sub-plot of an ancient cult, the trailer that gave away absolutely everything, and did I mention the tw*t of a husband? No doubt there'll be a sequel, and another, and another. Remember when there were actually good horror found-footage films? Me neither. Hollywood is just saturated with them, none of them good. A complete and terrible rip-off of Rosemary's Baby. Just don't watch it. If I could give it a minus rating I would. Definitely in the category of one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
ReplyDelete