Devil

Remember when the above trailer first popped up in theaters? Audiences laughed at the appearance of M. Night Shyamalan's name. I distinctly remember titters in the audience when I caught the trailer. But laughter aside, I've always been a little bit intrigued by Devil. Generally, I'm a huge fan of entertainment that takes place in a confined space and the onset of paranoia when bad stuff starts to happen. At no point did I expect Devil to be good, but at the very least, I thought it would be fun. Even though I was intrigued by Devil, I never made an effort to see it until a coworker of mine and I agreed that we'd both watch it. He watched it months ago and has been giving me a hard time about not holding up my end of the bargain. Finally, I gave in.

Devil got mixed reviews at best and it's not surprising why. There's little redeeming about the characters, there's ridiculous narration thrown in to explain events in the story (given by a tertiary character), and the movie is entirely predictable. And for a movie about five people stuck in an elevator, there are way too many characters. The filmmakers try to fit so much into Devil that everything suffers, but worst of all, the ending makes no sense at all (embarking on spoilers).

I won't say exactly which character is the devil, though it's fairly obvious from the beginning, but after involvement in killing off at least five different people (most of whom we're told have a history of crime or being bad people), the remaining person in the elevator confesses to killing to people in a car crash and driving away (those two happen to be the police officer-in-charge's wife and child). At this confession, the devil says, "I really wanted you!" and disappears. Now, I'd have to imagine that this character must have done something else bad in his life if that's the only criteria for the devil killing people. Otherwise, why would the devil have no qualms about killing everyone else and not continue with this guy? It doesn't make any sense. And why would the devil "really want" this particular person? Everything about this ending is stupid. There's no sign that the devil would let someone go because that person confessed to one particular sin that is probably one of thousands.

Even if we keep that ending, as flawed as it is, Devil still could have been salvaged. I first learned of the term "bottle episode" from Community and I think Devil would be much better if it adopted that approach. First, get rid of everything that takes place outside of the elevator. Once the characters are in it, the camera should never leave them. You can still have the voice over the PA and people trying to help them, but the viewer experiences things like the trapped people do. This way, when the guy falls on top of the elevator, we're just as surprised as the characters. With this approach, we can also get to know the characters better because we're not splitting time between them and rescue efforts. Tension can build slower and the viewer gets more claustrophobic. Alliances can shift as everyone become more paranoid. Hell, one of the characters can even be an audience surrogate.

There honestly is a good movie to be found in this concept. It's a shame that the filmmakers couldn't see it. Oh, and even though M. Night Shyamalan gets the "Story by" credit, he basically stole the structure from an Agathie Christie story, "And Then There Were None," and freely admits she inspired him. So, if he didn't actually write Devil and just "came up" with the story, doesn't that really mean that Agatha Christie should get the story nod? Or at least a story nod?