Here Comes the Devil

Not to get all “bloggy” on you, but Here Comes the Devil is a film that’s disappointing on a personal level. Everything from the poster to the synopsis to the critical praises on the front cover suggest it’s creepy little imported thriller about two kids who get on lost on a cursed mountain and return to their parents the next day somehow “changed.” You don’t have to be a whiz at Words with Friends to put this puzzle together and spell S-A-T-A-N.

But from the opening prologue – a blurred lesbian sex scene whose inclusion is hard to justify – director Adrian Garcia Bogliano takes the wrong creative turn at almost every fork in the road, eventually driving us back to the very same cave where it all began. It’s a long, strange trip, all right…but the scenery is terrible and the radio is stuck on a death metal station.

There’s a sexual subtext that is likely to blame for all the supernatural hokum going on. But it’s not handled well enough to come across as more than crude titillation. And the film’s attempts at misdirection – a revenge angle as the parents seek vengeance against a drifter they believe was involved in the children’s abduction – seems like it comes from another movie altogether. The gore sequences are amateurish at best and so is most of the acting.

Really, nothing in Here Comes the Devil works as it should. And while that might have been the director’s intention, it winds up being a profoundly frustrating experience for the average viewer…and even horror aficionados. Like one of those old oversize VHS boxes from the ‘80s that over-promised and under-delivered, buyer beware on this one!

Magnet Picture’s blu-ray is hard to criticize, though. The image looks like a fine representation of what was shot and the extras include extended scenes, rehearsals, photos, behind-the-scenes stuff and a commentary.