# Devil

> Devil is based on a story by Shyamalan and is the first instalment in a reportedly creepy series called “The Night Chronicles”

By Ben McEachen · 3 April 2011 · Reviews / Gaming

Canonical: https://insights1.uca.org.au/articles/devil/

## (M) Universal DVD/BD

M. Night Shyamalan hit it huge with *The Sixth Sense* (1999) but, since then, the indulgent auteur has become better known for not being able to make lightning strike twice.

*Devil* is based on a story by Shyamalan and is the first instalment in a reportedly creepy series called “The Night Chronicles”. Modest.

Directed by John Erick Dowdle, *Devil* has a spooky presence menacing five strangers in an elevator, stuck between floors of a skyscraper. With no clear means of escape and the trapped people being picked off, this freaky situation provides several fine chills – and comedy moments.

Shyamalan has often dabbled in a sanitised version of God bothering, *The Sixth Sense, Signs* and *The Happening* involving supernatural threats and generic questions of existence, fate and a controlling force outside of ourselves.

While *Devil* gets sillier as it tries to explain Satan without being convicted enough to link him directly to a religious system, Shyamalan’s manipulation of how he wants to depict evil does raise a poignant truism.

Amid the weird deaths and high-pitched screams, it’s noted that even those who claim not to believe in the prince of darkness are still scared of him. Rightly so.

**Ben McEachen**