The mother of Blu-rays and DVDs has just given a painful and terrifying birth to ‘The Devil’s Due’, a new horror film in the vein of those found footage films a la The Blair Witch Project. The films is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet co-creators of the 2012 retro horror fest V/H/S. The film is inspired by Rosemary’s Baby, a horror classic from 1968 with a similar plot, and stars Allison Miller and Zach Gilford a very unlucky couple.
The film focuses on a newly wedded couple Zach (Gilford) and Samantha (Miller) and Zach’s terrifyingly creepy addiction of filming every moment of their new life together is the framing device. After a touching wedding, Zach and Sam go off to Mexico for an expensive honeymoon but decide to stay in a hotel, which I imagine was called ‘The Homicide Crime Scene Inn’. After a few hours of running around and enjoying their lives they get into a taxi, the driver very forcefully brings them to a mysterious location, wherein they drink too much and end up impregnated with the Anti-Christ. A favourite Mexican past time according to Lonely Planet I think. When Sam realises she’s pregnant she immediately gets into a massive tizzy which only increases when she starts to freak out priests and bleed uncontrollably from her nose at inappropriate situations. She becomes concerned for the babies health and freaks out and does weird things, she even eats some meat even though she’s a vegetarian, oh the horror! The deleted scenes on the Blu-ray feature other disturbing images such as: Sam pooing her pants on a bus after she sneezed really hard. Sam losing her shit with the laptop after she tried to scratch off an apostrophe that she thought was a bit of dirt. Sam starting her own pregnant-with-the-anti-christ porn webcam chat room, etc.
As stated above the film is one of those found footage deals with the husband suspected of murder because of that whole supernatural causes thing, it’s not terrible but it’s not going to be considered for any Oscars. Well, maybe an Oscar Pestorius. The film is both run-of-the-mill and very entertaining, though the couple are sickening and anyone with an ounce of cynicism is going to look forward to them getting brutally murdered, even before they get pregnant. The terror of having a child mixed in with the anti-christ baby is anchored in real life (the behaviour of someone suddenly full of hormones male or female is erratic and otherworldly) and could have the sanest man buttering the top step of a flight of stairs before the wee urine stick line has gone blue.
The directors intentionally took out the element of ‘who compiled these videos’ because they believe that we are too smart as an audience to truly believe that a woman can be impregnated by the Mexican anti-christ AND have a friend look through her stuff after she’s dead, which you can understand. That mixed in with the ending not really being an ending leaves you feeling that they were too lazy to try and make it believable, or that they just had no ideas. All in all I enjoyed it and if you’re looking something to make having a child scary then watch The Devil’s Due.
Oh aye, I give this film 3/5 (within the context of its genre).
[★★★☆☆]
Dave Roberts
The Devil's Due at CeX
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