'Devil' Trailer

After the massive sleeper hit that was the Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan was for some time pegged as the new auteur on the block. Fast forward several years and he’s struggling to retain the merest shred of credibility after directing such stinkers as ‘Signs’, ‘The Village’ and ‘Lady In The Water’. What happened? Well, there have been various theories. That he started to believe his own hype, that he may be a better storyteller than he is director (if you like big plot twist endings). Perhaps no-one has been bold enough to advise that his projects of late may have been a little misguided?

With the first reviews of his latest feature ‘The Last Airbender’ leaking across the web, it doesn’t look like he’s managed to redeem himself in any way as yet. However, despite a deluge of detractors there has definitely been some excited chat over a project that he’s just produced called ‘Devil’, the first film in his Night Chronicles series.

Written by Brian Nelson, the man behind the atmospheric and genuinely creepy vampire flick ’30 Days Of Night’ and directed by the up and coming Dowdle Brothers (Quarantine, The Poughkeepsie Tapes), the premise is a simple one. No plot spoilers here...it’s all in the title. It’s a chiller whereby some office workers become trapped in a lift in their office block. However, everyone is not as they first seem and it appears that old Nick himself may be stuck in there with them. Unlucky. But which character is it?

Such supernatural/horror movies usually benefit from simple concepts, well executed. And no-one can say that ‘Devil’ is convoluted in the plot stakes. So it’s good news all round (certainly to the Clash team) that Shyamalan is keeping his grubby fingers well away from both camera and pen whilst lending what weight he retains to a movie that would probably linger in straight to DVD hell otherwise. Here’s hoping.

‘Devil’ is due for a UK release in Autumn.