Devil (2010 film)

Devil
Teaser poster
Directed by	John Erick Dowdle
Screenplay by	Brian Nelson
Story by	M. Night Shyamalan
Produced by	John Erick Dowdle Drew Dowdle M. Night Shyamalan Sam Mercer
Starring	Chris Messina Bojana Novakovic Bokeem Woodbine Logan Marshall-Green Jenny O'Hara Geoffrey Arend
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Edited by	Elliot Greenberg
Music by	Fernando Velázquez
Production companies	Media Rights Capital The Night Chronicles Blinding Edge Pictures
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	September 17, 2010 (2010-09-17)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$51,378,223

Devil (also known as The Night Chronicles: Devil) is a 2010 U.S. supernatural thriller film based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan, written by Brian Nelson, and directed by John Erick Dowdle. The film was released on September 17, 2010, and is the first of The Night Chronicles trilogy, which involves the supernatural within modern urban society. The film's plot follows a group of people trapped inside an elevator that realize one of them is the Devil. Devil opened at the number three spot in the box office opening weekend, taking in a total of twelve million dollars.

Plot

The film begins with a narration from a man named Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) who tells the viewers of stories that his mother had told him as a child that sometimes the devil actively seeks out individuals who have sinned on earth, and while taking human form he traps these individuals in a confined place only to turn them against each other, to kill them off one at a time. He further explains that the last two normally have a romantic connection and they all always die. He says that the signs are set in motion with a suicide, as that is when the devil first makes his presence known. This story is abruptly interrupted by a violent suicide of a man who had fallen from the 39th floor of an office building, causing the truck he landed on to roll silently away from the scene.

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina)is a recovering alcoholic who is assigned to the case of the suicide, he later explains that the reason for his alcoholism was the hit and run death of his wife and toddler son three years prior. When he investigates the suicide, he determines that the truck originated from an office building down the block from where the victim was found. Meanwhile, five strangers board an elevator, which becomes stuck between floors just shortly after staring up to the upper floors. The four don't introduce themselves right away, but when security finds them, they notice that other than the CCTV and a radio which they can communicate into the elevator, they have no way of hearing the passengers in return. Bowden is in the area at the time of the call about the elevators and takes the investigation as it is the same building the suicide had been committed. Ramerez is revealed to be one of the security focals and is disturbed by an image of what looks like a screaming face frozen on the video monitor that flashes away. His boss Lustig (Matt Craven) dismisses the superstitious suspicions and sends the repair technician Dwight to investigate the elevators while Bowden tries to ascertain the identities of the individuals. Only four of the five are accounted for; Vince McCormick (Geoffrey Arend), a sleezy mattress salesman known for investments and frauds, Sarah Caraway (Bojana Novakovic) the wife of a rich family who is a pathelogical liar and plans to leave her husband with the money. Ben Larson (Bokeem Woodbine) a temp security guard with a history of violence. Jane Kowski (Jenny O'Hara), an older woman who is seen on video cameras to be a thief, and another man who later introduces himself as Tony, but otherwise does not appear to have signed in at the security desk.

Things turn from strange to frightening when there is a freak power outage in the cab, and Sarah is wounded with what appears to be a bite. All suspicion is turned on Vincent who has been dodgy since the ride began, however there is another power failure and Vince is thrown into the mirror only to have his jugular vein sliced, the others watch in horror as he writhes and dies, forcing Bowden to consider this a murder scene. Meanwhile Dwight attempts to rappel down the elevator shaft via a pulley to try and fix the elevator, but Ramirez says that the devil would stop any attempts to help his victims, and Dwight's strap comes loose when he is knocked over by a pack of birds and plummets to the roof of the elevator. When the power goes out again, it comes back that Jane is found hanging high off the floor, dead, causing both Sarah and Ben to accuse Tony of these malicious acts while Tony swears his innocence. Lustig goes to investigate the power in the basement while Ramirez tells Bowden about the story of the Devil incarnate on Earth, Lustig finds a loose power cable that appears to be what sabotaged the elevators, but he is electrocuted trying to fix the issue. Bowden finds a set of tools that Tony had brought in and suspects he might be responsible for the elevator damage, but determines that Ben might have more motive having been possibly hired to kill Sarah by her husband to keep her from leaving him broke. However Ben is the victim of the next blackout, his neck is twisted around grotesquely. Sarah and Tony face off with each other, but ultimately decide that a fight wouldn't be worth it and lower their weapons, there is a sudden blackout and Sarah's throat is cut. As she dies in his arms, a woman claiming to be Tony's fiance reveals that Tony's last name was "Janekowski" and the only one who hadn't signed in was the old woman who they assumed her name was Jane Kowski.

As they realize this the old woman rises up, revealing herself to be the devil. Tony tries to bargain with her to save Sarah's life and sacrifice his own, she scoffs at this, having revealed she'd kill him anyway. In a last, desperate plea for forgiveness, Tony, using a radio confesses to a hit and run three years earlier, while drunkenly reaching for beer in his car he smashed into and killed a woman and her child. Bowden realizes that Ramirez was right having being meant to be the audience to this. The devil, spiteful of this act of repentance says "Damn, and I really wanted you" before vanishing, and the elevator doors are opened up, leaving Tony the only survivor. Bowden offers to take Tony into custody for the confession, and while enroute, informs him who he is. But despite saying he'd gone over what he'd say, or what he would do if they'd ever cross paths, he forgives Tony.

The film ends with Ramirez telling the audience that his mother always reassured him at the end of her stories, "If the Devil is real, then God must be real too."

Cast

• Chris Messina as Detective Bowden
• Logan Marshall-Green as Anthony "Tony" Janekowski / The Mechanic
• Jenny O'Hara as "Jane Kowski" / Older Woman
• Bojana Novakovic as Sarah Caraway / Younger Woman
• Bokeem Woodbine as Ben Larson / The Guard
• Geoffrey Arend as Vince McCormick / The Salesman
• Jacob Vargas as Ramirez
• Matt Craven as Lustig
• Joshua Peace as Detective Markowitz
• Joe Cobden as Dwight
• Caroline Dhavernas as Elsa Nahai

Production

In October 2008, Shyamalan announced, with the partnership of Media Rights Capital, that Devil will be made with the Dowdle brothers as the directors and Brian Nelson as the screenwriter. A year later, filming started on October 26 in Toronto. There was additional shooting for the film several months later in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Story sources

Based on recent film clips, Ysamur Flores and the directors of Devil, John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, explain 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 location and begin to die one by one. The final plot twist is also the same, with the villain being revealed as one of the group who was thought to have died earlier in the story.

Release

The film was set to have a release date on February 11, 2011, but was bumped up to September 17, 2010. The film's trailer debuted online on July 13, 2010. The trailer was attached with Inception, Salt, The Other Guys, The Expendables, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Last Exorcism, Takers, Machete, Going the Distance and Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Critical reception

The film was not screened to critics in advance. Devil has received mixed reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports a mixed score of 55%, or 5/10, with the site's consensus being "It's better than many of the other films M. Night Shyamalan has been associated with, but Devil never gets more than a few low-budget thrills out of its fiendishly promising premise." Dennis Harvey of Variety.com 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

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

Box office

The film came in third for the weekend of September 17–19, 2010, behind The Town and Easy A, taking $4,930,000 on Friday and $12,584,000 domestically for the weekend.

Sequels

On June 23, 2010, Shyamalan announced the second film in The Night Chronicles, titled 12 Strangers at first, but later changed to Reincarnate. The film is about a jury discussing a case dealing with the supernatural. Chris Sparling is set to write the script and Daniel Stamm to direct. Shyamalan has also confirmed that the story for the currently untitled third installment of The Night Chronicles is actually going to be taken from the unplanned sequel of Unbreakable.

External links

• Official website
• Devil at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Devil at AllMovie
• Devil at Box Office Mojo
• Devil at Rotten Tomatoes