The Devil Made Me Watch It
If Satan truly walks among us, his greatest trick wasn’t tempting Eve or starting heavy metal—it was convincing 20th Century Fox to finance Devil’s Due. Marketed as “a terrifying found-footage thriller in the tradition of Paranormal Activity,” what we actually got was Paranormal Activity 6: The Baby Shower Nobody Wanted.
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett—yes, the guys who brought us Ready or Not and somehow survived this cinematic exorcism—Devil’s Due is a film so painfully generic it could be generated by ChatGPT’s evil twin after one too many shots of sacramental wine.
It’s Rosemary’s Baby if Rosemary had an Instagram and Zach Braff for a husband.
The Plot: Pregnancy Test from Hell
Our story begins with Zach (Zach Gilford, forever trapped in his post-Friday Night Lights wilderness years) and Sam (Allison Miller), a couple so bland they make a piece of unbuttered toast look charismatic. They’re newlyweds, they’re happy, they’re filming everything like people who don’t understand the concept of privacy.
The movie opens with Zach setting up a video diary for their “future child,” which sounds sweet until you realize it’s an excuse for 90 minutes of shaky handheld footage that would make even a GoPro nauseous.
The couple heads to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon, because nothing says romance like impending demonic impregnation. After a night of dancing, drinking, and suspiciously aggressive taxi drivers, they end up at a mysterious underground club that’s roughly 60% strobe light and 40% bad decisions.
They wake up the next morning, confused and hungover, with no memory of what happened—which, in fairness, describes most spring break trips. Weeks later, Sam discovers she’s pregnant despite her “religious” devotion to birth control, which should’ve been her first clue that divine forces were involved.
What follows is a checklist of every cliché in the possession-pregnancy playbook: nosebleeds, mood swings, creepy sonogram, weird strangers watching the house, and sudden cravings for raw meat like she’s auditioning for Top Chef: Hell Edition.
Before long, Sam’s levitating furniture, attacking her husband, and developing telekinesis, which the movie treats with all the subtlety of a Marvel origin story.
Meanwhile, Zach, our heroic husband, responds to all this by… filming it. Because when your wife is being possessed by Satan’s unborn son, what she really needs is your YouTube channel.
The Performances: Possessed by Mediocrity
Allison Miller does what she can with material that gives her roughly two emotional settings: “confused” and “screaming.” She’s asked to go from quirky newlywed to raw-meat-eating demon incubator, but the transformation is so rushed it feels like she got morning sickness and a script rewrite on the same day.
Zach Gilford, bless his Midwestern heart, spends most of the movie looking vaguely concerned while operating a camera. He’s the human equivalent of a shrug. Every time something horrifying happens, he reacts like he just got the wrong order at Starbucks. “Oh, you’re telekinetically flipping furniture again, honey? Classic pregnancy stuff.”
Their chemistry together is less “soulmates” and more “two coworkers accidentally booked the same Airbnb.”
And then there’s the supporting cast—though calling them “supporting” implies they did something. There’s the doctor who may or may not be a cultist, a priest who exists solely to cough up blood on cue, and a taxi driver who looks like he got lost on his way to a better horror movie.
The Horror: More Found Than Frightening
Devil’s Due is part of the found-footage genre, which means every jump scare comes prepackaged with motion sickness. The filmmakers seem to think that if the camera shakes enough, you won’t notice how little is actually happening.
The scares themselves are so predictable you could set your watch by them. A creaky door here, a loud thud there, maybe a glowing symbol for good measure. The film has all the tension of a haunted IKEA catalog.
The cult behind the possession—because of course there’s a cult—is comprised of men in black hoodies who skulk around suburbia installing hidden cameras like Satanic Comcast technicians. Their sinister plan? Film Sam’s pregnancy and… upload it to the Dark Web? Sell it to TLC as My Demon Baby and Me? The movie never really says.
By the time the final act rolls around, the “big reveal” that Sam is carrying the Antichrist lands with all the shock of a gender reveal party gone wrong.
The Direction: Found Footage, Lost Plot
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are talented directors—they’ve proven that since—but here they seem trapped in the creative purgatory of studio-mandated horror. Every choice feels dictated by a checklist:
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Random static during sonogram? ✔️
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Priest coughing up blood? ✔️
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Creepy kids staring ominously? ✔️
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Jump scare involving a mirror? Double ✔️
Even the soundtrack is asleep at the wheel. Every “scary” moment is accompanied by that same low droning hum used in every trailer since 2010. If sound design were a person, it would’ve quit halfway through production.
The Dominican Republic sequence could’ve been interesting—it’s the only section that hints at mystery—but instead it’s over in ten minutes, replaced by suburban malaise and a Costco-sized supply of baby monitors.
The Writing: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Lazy Screenplay
Let’s talk about the script—or, more accurately, the series of horror tropes duct-taped together and called a screenplay. Written by Lindsay Devlin, Devil’s Due feels less like an original story and more like someone binge-watched Rosemary’s Baby, Paranormal Activity, and The Omen during a NyQuil haze.
There’s no real mystery because the title already gives away the ending. There’s no tension because every scene telegraphs its punchline. And there’s no logic because the characters behave like they’re under contract to make the worst possible choices.
When Zach finds hidden cameras in their house, does he call the police? Of course not. He just keeps filming. Because what’s more important than protecting your demon-possessed wife? Content creation.
By the time the priest coughs blood all over his vestments and mutters about symbols of the Antichrist, you’ll be wishing someone would perform an exorcism on the script.
The Ending: Satan’s Sequel Setup
The climax involves Sam stabbing herself in the stomach while a demonic light show erupts around her, leaving behind a very confused husband, a very dead wife, and one presumably adorable Antichrist baby.
The cultists swoop in, steal the child, and vanish into the night, while poor Zach is left sobbing and being arrested for a crime so nonsensical even the cops seem tired.
Then, in true horror fashion, we’re treated to a lazy “it’s happening again” ending, this time in Paris, because nothing says global evil like a franchise setup that never got a sequel.
The 3rd Trimester of Boredom
To give credit where it’s due (pun intended), Devil’s Due does manage a few unintentionally funny moments. Like when Sam starts eating raw meat straight from the package while her husband films in fascination instead of, you know, calling a doctor. Or when she develops telekinetic powers and Zach’s reaction is to film it from a better angle.
It’s the kind of movie where you start rooting for Satan, if only to put everyone out of their misery.
Final Thoughts: Abort Mission
Devil’s Due isn’t just bad—it’s aggressively mediocre, like the filmmakers summoned the Antichrist and all they got was a tax write-off. It’s proof that even demonic possession can’t save you from a boring marriage or a lazy script.
It wants to be Rosemary’s Baby for the Snapchat generation, but it ends up feeling more like The Omen: Home Video Edition.
By the time the credits roll, you won’t be clutching your rosary—you’ll be clutching your remote, praying for Netflix’s “Are You Still Watching?” prompt to deliver you.
Verdict: 1 out of 5 Baby Monitors.
If hell is eternal torment, then congratulations—this movie is the trailer.
