Devil - Not all Shyamalan's ideas are shit then!

Those who will permit me to pontificate at any length about films will eventually discover that I am extremely indifferent towards the work of M. Night Shyamalan.  I don't really understand why it is that The Sixth Sense captured the imagination of the zeitgeist in quite the way it did, and as a result elevated Shyamalan's stock to Holywood darling almost overnight.  The Sixth Sense is one twist.  The Happening is boring and nothing happens.  The Village's twist is telegraphed in the opening shot.  Signs is ok for a bit, but the final act is horrible.  People seem to like Unbreakable, but I'm just not into that superhero stuff like them.  Sure he has other work, but I'm going to judge him on what I've seen, and it ain't much cop.

I can't work out why it is that I ended up in possession of a copy of Devil on DVD.  Some vague Mark Kermode review I imagine.  It's a film that Shyamalan had nothing to do with the production of, but it is based on a story by him.  I know this because the DVD cover insists on telling me, such is the assumption that putting Shyamalan's name on a thing makes the thing more desirable.  It is only 80 minutes long, and tells the story of 5 people who are trapped in a lift, the police and workers in the building who are trying to save them.  The supernatural premise is that the people in the lift are being toyed with by the Devil, out to torture some undeserving souls and then kill them off for their mortal sins.  Fair enough, horror shlock here we come I guess!

For starters, the film wasn't what I was expecting.  I was imagining that we would spend most of the film inside the lift, and that how or why they were there would be a mystery.  Eventually it would turn out to be some sort of Jacob's Ladder thing and they all end up at the lift's destination - in hell.  In fact it is set in a very real lift in a very real building, in which there is a very real and overt supernatural force at work.  A spooky face even appears on the CCTV footage to prove it.  Cue Mexican guy doing Catholic prayers and telling mystical stories about the Devil coming to collect souls.  Better get the ethnic to be the mystical one, because that isn't racist.

Each of the 5 people in the lift are a bit of mystery, who they are and what they're in the building to do all eventually sheds light on why it is that the Devil wants their souls in particular.  It's not particularly shocking as far as horror goes, with a bit of blood and voice effects to make things seem nastier than they are, but the ending is quite satisfying - which surprised me a lot.

Maybe this is what Shyamalan needs to do for the rest of his career - just come up with the ideas and let other people flesh them out.  If you want 80 minutes of average-to-good 15-rated 'horror', give Devil a go.