Review of Devil's Due (2014) by Tom R — 27 May 2014

(4 Stars) Devil's Due is a huge surprise: a pseudo-found footage movie about a devil cult... and it's actually GOOD?!? Yeah, I still don't believe it, but it does so much right where other movies that look like this have failed.

Here's the main reason why it's a good movie: the newlyweds (Allison Miller and Zach Gilford) are actually likable people. I don't really see them "found footage acting;" I see them as two happy people starting a life together. They aren't "douchey guy" and "dumb girl who gets possessed," like every other movie out there in this genre. We take likable characters for granted in horror.

And it's not exactly a found footage movie. It pulls a Chronicle (great handheld-camera based movie) and mixes security footage with consumer cameras. There isn't an "editor" who put all these clips together; you're just watching a story unfold in front of you.

I think the directors (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) know that these found footage movies aren't scary or convincing at all. They were with The Blair Witch Project, when everyone thought that was real, but that novelty is gone. So they set out to make a dramatic thriller with horror elements. Most of the time, I don't feel like I'm watching a horror movie, and that's great.

It's certainly not perfect. The resolution is crappy due to a ton of convenient things that would have to happen for the cult and extremely incompetent police work. The climax is a little reminiscent of every found footage movie. And like I said, it's a dramatic thriller more than horror, so you might not be scared as much as you want to be.

But I hope people don't mistake this one for complete crap, like the very closely titled The Devil Inside. Devil's Due stands out among the sea of sludge and it's worth at least a rental.