Review of Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015) by Dillinger P — 05 Apr 2015

Knowing nothing at all about this film going into it, I genuinely thought that this was a real life documentary, the fact that for well over half the movie I still considered it to be and only in the final 3rd having it crumble beneath me, left me completely and utterly dissapointed and rather sad at the lack luster ending.

Since found footage started to get a bit old, a new trend has came out the woodwork, mainly in horror, where we are led to believe that what we are watching is a documentary, The Last Exorcism, The Conspiracy and many others have attempted this and although all these films have mixed reviews, they have been of commendable work, to the extent of believability.

For a start the Devil's Backbone, Texas is without a doubt the strongest and the weakest of the entire catalogue here, being in that is pulls out every single punch to make you believe its real, that in its lazy 3rd half not only is the rug swept from under your feet but your treated to a shockingly bad ending, one that does the film no justice what so ever.

Why film makers feel the need to create such wonderful experiences and worlds only to shatter them with stupidity near the end, is just baffling. It almost feels as if they feel like if there are no big scares in the final reel then it wont work.

It's rubbish, because the entire experience should be one of intrigue and horror, not just the last moments of cheap scares. Backbone starts of extremely well, setting the scene by showing us a man named Jake, whos father Burt, was a horrible man, a lousy husband and after moving into a historical part of Texas, ultimately lost his mind and eventually died under suspicious circumstances.

Jake wants to take a cameraman and a group of friends up to his fathers final living spot, The Devils Backbone and scatter his ashes. Only when they get there, the lines of his fathers insanity and the supernatural begin to blur, after the group stumble across bizarre memorabilia and interviews from the locals.

Its all wonderful, the acting is naturalistic, the contributors all do a wonderful job of selling the piece. The film also manages to hold your attention, you really feel like your watching something real unfold in front of your eyes.

It is essentially brilliant stuff, all the camera angles make sense, it doesnt come across as notable, most of the time, that the cameraman is in fact a crew and it all feels fresh and wonderful. It slowly begins to get more and more preposterous however and although the 2nd twist before the final one almost turns it into a, "If this was true this would be one hell of a documentary" film, then it does as all these films do, fling in the hocus pocus nonsense that ruins it all.

I have to say, im not sure if this genre of film is meant to work or not because after finding out youve been tricked, it really shits all over your experience, however I am interested in finding out if a director is capable of making one of these films work.

This almost goes there, it has moments of questionability and some far fetched ideas at times but on the whole up until 3/4's of the way through you are completely invested. Completely dissapointing on so many levels, yet commendable on so many other levels.

If you like the genre youll love it, for me, its a tried and tested forumla that almost got me and when I caught the trick the film went from a 5 star down to a 3. And in 15 minutes thats a pretty hard thing to do.