Review of Devil's Due (2014) by Victor V — 29 May 2014

Ah, fuck. Here we go again. Yet another found footage horror film, and worst of all, another demon possession-themed one. How many of these kinds of films do we need, anyway? Well, at least it's not as bad as say, The Devil Inside, Seventh Moon, or Paranormal Activity 4, but it's still a piece of shit and yet another slap in the face to demon possession horror films and found footage films.

The McCalls are a newly and happily married couple. During their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, they explore the sights, party, and do all sorts of other things like any newly married couple would do on such a special occasion. During their last night in the country, a cab driver convinces them to go to a club with him, and during the intense partying, they black out and remember nothing of the rest of that night.

Shortly after they come home, it turns out that Samantha is pregnant despite all their attempts at birth control. Despite this unexpected event, the couple is happy to be expecting their baby and begin making the arrangements as any responsible parent would.

But, as time goes by, Samantha begins to change, and not in ways a pregnancy would normally change a woman, or her symptoms are far more severe than what most other women would experience. Her mood can suddenly go from happy to furious (Like when a car accidentally backs up into her and she smashes multiple windows in her rage), she develops cravings for raw meat despite being a vegetarian, seems to develop telekinetic powers (Which at one point she uses to murder a group of annoying teenagers), and also seems to get super strength as well from this baby inside of her.

Now, her husband (Who is obsessed with holding a damn camera for every fucking event in this film), Zach must figure out what is really going on with his wife and their baby before it's too late for him, for her, and even other people. Slowly he begins to unravel the horrible truth of what really happened that night and what is really growing inside of his wife, all while other people are injured or killed in the process of the horror.

What really kills Devil's Due is how damn boring it is. This mostly has to do with the fact that the film seems awfully content to be a generic brand of horror as it has absolutely no ideas of its own. If you've seen Rosemary's Baby along with virtually every other demon possession film, and pretty much any found footage film, you already know exactly what is going to happen and you will not give one flying fuck as any of it happens because any sense of tension, terror, or suspense is automatically negated.

I would be hesitant to call this an assembly line horror film, but instead it feels like a bad bargain bin version of a generic assembly line horror film, making the experience all that much more miserable to sit through.

It also doesn't help that the direction is terrible. Even by the standards of found footage films which require a lot of camera shaking, dropping the camera, and various other things which can get annoying at times, Devil's Due has absolutely horrendous camera work, which only helped to ruin any sense of atmosphere as well as it became difficult to see much of what was happening because the dipshit characters either filmed at bad angles or dropped the fucking camera constantly. When I have to constantly crane my head to follow the camera to see where the hell it's going, something is desperately wrong.

While I felt that the actors tried their best, they could do very little with their roles thanks to the horrendously generic and derivative script which feels like a horrid combo of a bargain version of Rosemary's Baby (For those who thought that film was too slow and needed an abundance of jump scares) combined with the film-making quality of the atrocious Paranormal Activity 2 & 4. I never cared about any of these characters and due to the generic nature of this film, it becomes abundantly clear very early on who is going to live and die and what happens. See? Can you blame the actors for not giving good performances? What the fuck were they supposed to do with this shit?

Also, the film is certainly not scary and comes with all the annoying tropes of modern horror films. There's a lot of jump scares, stealing from much better sources to coat tail their successes, dumb characters with little to no development, tired ideas, and more. I was never scared, never creeped out, nor did I even feel any sense of dread or menace from the atmosphere because the atmosphere and tone are very lousy in quality. There's nothing here to satisfy most horror fans, and will only serve to please people who find jump scares frightening.

Devil's Due is yet another lousy found footage film and another lousy demon possession film that has no creativity, energy, scares, good acting, quality storytelling, good music, or really much of anything going for it. Unless you're really hard up for a bargain version of Rosemary's Baby for people who don't have the patience or taste to appreciate that film, you won't find a damn thing in this film. Avoid it at all costs, as it cannot even be salvaged as trashy entertainment.