Review of Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015) by Lizzy D — 02 Apr 2015

I can save you an hour and twenty minutes. A Drama acting like a horror that ends up as a nightmare to watch.

After an interesting opening, this movie settles into a tired routine of banality. The movie tries to add flavour to what is a hackneyed plot and terrifically annoying characters. But that's not to say there are not good ideas. The tale is of a man returning to his place of birth to scatter the ashes of his estranged father on his estate. But after the introduction is all goes to pot.

The movie is thankfully short, but it could have done with being an hour longer as a horror movie. As a drama, maybe another ten minutes of some crying at the end and a nice shot of the estate then Fin. As a horror you couldcCut out some of the emotional crap, have the ending be the middle and PUT SOME MORE DAMN GHOSTS IN THE GHOST MOVIE!

A frustrating number of plot holes and a totally bizarre use of camera work adds to the maelstrom of confusion. At the beginning we're introduced to the camera man as a character (A found footage movie about ghosts! Originality thy name is The Devil's Backbone) but then he sinks into the background, no one speaks to him until the last 20 minutes of the movie.

The ghosty bits (I kid you not, there are two of them) are derivative and pointless. The ending is almost good, then it's stupid, really dumb. I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to be entertained, but I was just confused.

If the movie has good points, it's in the scenery, the gorgeous Texas backdrop provides stunning Vistas that are shown throughout the movie. I'll give one star for the camera work here. But it's not a nature documentary about Texas, it's a found footage ghost story. This again is the confusion of having a found footage movie acting like a static camera flick.

In the end it's a derivative, silly nightmare. I wouldn't even bother giving it a look over. This sort of nonsense can be done without in the horror genre. This movie may have done well as a drama; the emotional bits are good at the start of the film. But the empathy, once built, trails off into two separate tales, a ghosty story and a cathartic journey home.

The two do not work well together; perhaps there would have been a way of doing this, but these thoughts are too little, too late.

A big No from I'm afraid and by the way I wasn't afraid, at any stage at this nonsensical farce of a horror flick.