Review - Devil

M Night Shyamalan has been getting a lot of flak lately, especially for that blunder that is The Last Airbender.



He first exploded onto the scene with the kick-ass The Sixth Sense, even though he had made a couple of movies before that. And he was always wearing at least two hats: Writer and Director. Sometimes Producer as well...



Unfortunately for him, his movies are not as good as The Sixth Sense but not that bad either. Unbreakable. Signs. The Village. But then again, the quality seemed to have been dropping since Unbreakable. Either he peaked too soon or The Sixth Sense was just a fluke.



We kept hoping his next movie would be half as good as The Sixth Sense but he had never been able to deliver. Lady in the Water clearly showed that he had lost his touch, although the movie had a pretty decent storyline. The Happening was just too weird and/or not really able to be made sense of...



Then he decided to tackle The Last Airbender. Hmm, maybe it'd work out well since the material has already been laid out in front of him. But noooo, he had to poo-poo all over that. Yup, I am an avid Avatar fan. He got a lot of it wrong and he took the life, soul and fun out of everything we hold dear about Team Avatar.



MNS really should stick to just writing and not direct. That way he could concentrate on making the script kick-ass instead of having his attention diverted into a million different ways.



But I am not a M Night Shyamalan hater. I am just disappointed. He had a lot of talent and potential to pull off The Sixth Sense. Of course, I also know that he is not the only one to be blamed for all those lacking movies coz there are other producers in charge and the studio execs... they could have easily forced him to make something better... or not... I guess we'd never know...



Anyway, with Devil... once I saw his name is on it... I was simultaneously excited and nervous. Rolling my eyes and clapping giddily.



MNS is back to The Sixth Sense territory. And he's only writing the script. So he won't be helming it lazily like he did The Last Airbender.



Watching the trailer, Devil does seem pretty interesting. And it totally was. As I have said many times before... what you don't see is genuinely scarier than something you can see on screen... it's like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity... scary shit right there... Devil also employs the same technique and it's all done within that one elevator car...



The tension and suspense... wow... the acting was also pretty good, featuring mostly unknown actors...



And the writing was excellent... I normally would have caught the red herring a mile away but this time, I did not see it until the pivotal moments before the unveiling of the red herring... MNS did such an amazing job tying everything together... kudos... hopefully, he'll stick to what he does best from now on... not directing, not acting... just writing scary movies...



Although I did find some storylines unnecessary but I guess it was a bit to throw us off the scent of the real killer behind it... excellent horror movie! :)