If you’ve ever been stuck in an elevator with someone who insists on talking about their crypto investments, congratulations — you’ve already survived a more terrifying ordeal than Devil (2010). Directed by John Erick Dowdle and based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan, Devil is what happens when you take a mildly interesting Twilight Zone concept, remove the charm, add fluorescent lighting, and pray the audience won’t notice you’ve trapped them for 80 minutes with five people and zero compelling dialogue. It’s marketed as a “supernatural thriller,” but that’s like calling a clogged escalator a “vertical adventure.” The setup sounds simple enough: five strangers get stuck in an elevator, and one of them is secretly Satan. Sounds promising, right? Hitchcock made Lifeboat out of a similar premise and wrung tension out of a dinghy. Shyamalan and company, however, somehow turn a confined space into a cinematic waiting room where the scariest thing is the small talk. The film opens with a dramatic suicide that’s supposed to foreshadow the Devil’s arrival, but mostly feels like the studio’s way of saying, “We’re sorry for what’s about to happen.” Soon, we meet our unlucky passengers: the corrupt security guard, the sleazy salesman, the hot young woman, the cranky old lady, and the brooding mechanic. It’s like a bad Clue game: “The Devil in the elevator with the broken mirror shard.” Then the elevator stalls, the lights flicker, and—surprise!—people start dying one by one during convenient blackouts. The kills are off-screen, the blood is minimal, and the suspense is flatter than the elevator’s battery. You’d think Satan could at least spice things up with some brimstone, but no — he prefers passive-aggressive haunting and mildly inconvenient electrical failures. Now, Devil is technically not directed by M. Night Shyamalan, but his fingerprints are all over it — greasy, smudged, and desperately grasping for a twist. His “Night Chronicles” concept was supposed to be a trilogy of supernatural morality plays. After Devil, the studio quietly exorcised that idea from existence, probably by sprinkling holy water over the Universal Pictures lot. The problem isn’t the premise — it’s the execution. The dialogue feels like it was written by a team of church youth counselors trying to sound edgy. Every character announces their sins like they’re auditioning for confession: “I once stole from my company.” “I cheated on my husband.” “I used the Lord’s name in vain twice.” By the time the movie’s done, it’s less The Exorcist and more A Very Special Episode of Highway to Heaven. The cinematography tries to sell claustrophobia but ends up feeling like an overlit hostage situation at a Sheraton. The score, meanwhile, treats every flicker of the lights as if we’ve just witnessed the Second Coming. If you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time the soundtrack blared “DUNNNN!” after something mundane, you’d be dead by minute 20 — which is arguably a mercy. We’re told early on that the Devil likes to walk among sinners before dragging them to Hell. Apparently, in this case, Satan just got bored and decided to do it during business hours in downtown Philadelphia. Because nothing says eternal damnation like being trapped between floors with a mattress salesman named Vince. Outside the elevator, a detective named Bowden (Chris Messina) watches everything unfold through a grainy security camera feed, offering the occasional line that sounds like it was stolen from a cop show rejected by CBS. Bowden, of course, has his own tragic backstory: a drunk driver killed his wife and child, and wouldn’t you know it — one of the elevator passengers is the guy responsible. That’s right. The Devil didn’t just show up to collect souls; he came to arrange a therapy session. The movie tries to tie all this together with a moral about forgiveness, but it lands with all the grace of a dropped anvil. By the time Bowden forgives the man who killed his family, I half-expected Satan to pop back in and say, “Okay, fine, you win this round. But next time, I’m taking the stairs.” Every time the lights go out, someone dies. Every time they come back on, the survivors scream, argue, and blame the wrong person. It’s like a demonic version of The Real World: Purgatory Edition. Geoffrey Arend, playing the smarmy salesman, gets one of the more memorable deaths — which isn’t saying much, since it happens off-screen. By the time the old lady starts hissing Bible verses and twitching like she’s trying to catch Wi-Fi, the audience has long since realized: She’s the Devil. Jenny O’Hara, bless her, goes full Nosferatu by the end, complete with glowing eyes and a “gotcha” grin that makes you wish the elevator had crashed five floors earlier. Her reveal is supposed to be shocking, but if you didn’t guess it by minute 30, you probably think the Easter Bunny runs on batteries. The film’s “rules” about the Devil are also hilariously inconsistent. Sometimes he needs to cause blackouts to kill people; other times, he’s omnipotent. Sometimes he whispers spooky nonsense; other times, he just glares and waits. If Lucifer really wanted these souls, he could’ve just cut the cables in the first five minutes and clocked out early. Look, the idea of trapping sinners in an elevator and forcing them to confront their guilt could have been interesting — if it had been written by, say, Stephen King or even the guy who wrote Final Destination 3. But instead, we get a PG-13 morality play disguised as a horror movie. Every death feels sanitized, every scream rehearsed, and every attempt at theology as deep as a puddle. The movie wants to be profound, but it’s like watching Sunday school students perform Saw with a church-approved budget. Even the jump scares feel lazy. The lights flicker, someone gasps, cut to black — rinse, repeat. By the third round, you’re praying for the fire department to just end it all by flooding the shaft. Ah yes, the twist — because you can’t have a Shyamalan-adjacent production without one. After all the stabbing, choking, and electrocuting, the final survivor confesses that he’s the hit-and-run driver who killed the detective’s family. The Devil, clearly moved by the power of plot convenience, decides to spare his soul because, apparently, Hell has a forgiveness clause now. Then, the detective forgives him too. Roll credits. Everyone’s learned a valuable lesson about redemption — except the audience, who’ve learned only that 80 minutes of elevator footage can feel like an eternity in damnation. The film ends with the narrator solemnly declaring, “If the Devil is real, then God must be real too.” Deep stuff — if you’ve never read a fortune cookie. Devil wants to be Hitchcockian suspense with a supernatural twist. Instead, it’s more like an episode of CSI: Purgatorywritten by a youth pastor on a caffeine crash. It’s not scary enough to be horror, not smart enough to be thriller, and not dumb enough to be fun. It’s just… trapped. The real terror isn’t the Devil. It’s the realization that you paid full price to watch five stereotypes argue about theology while a detective monologues about grief through a walkie-talkie. If you’ve ever wanted to experience purgatory without dying, Devil is your chance. It’s 80 minutes of moral lessons, malfunctioning lights, and the lingering question of why M. Night Shyamalan keeps being allowed near cameras. Final Verdict: ★★☆☆☆
🔥 The Devil Takes the Stairs, Because the Elevator’s Broken
👿 The Devil’s in the Details… Unfortunately, So Is Shyamalan
🚨 The Elevator of Exposition
🪞 Fear and Loathing in the Lift
💡 A Horror Film for People Who Find Escalators Too Fast-Paced
🕳️ The Twist Ending That Lands Like a Broken Elevator
🚪 Final Thoughts: Abandon Hope, All Who Enter Here
A hellish elevator ride where nothing elevates — not the tension, not the dialogue, and definitely not your pulse. Satan deserves better representation than this. Even the Prince of Darkness would’ve taken the stairs halfway through.You said:
