El heredero del diablo

'DEVIL'S DUE': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another low-budget supernatural horror 'found footage' flick. The story is about a recently wed woman who unexpectedly becomes pregnant, with the Antichrist. It's an homage to the classic Roman Polanski thriller 'ROSEMARY'S BABY' but it's presented in a style that's a lot more similar to the 'PARANORMAL ACTIVITY' franchise. It was written by Lindsay Devlin (who's only other film writing credit is the 2013 documentary 'IN SO MANY WORDS') and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are part of a collective filmmakers group called 'Radio Silence'; they previously co-directed, co-wrote and co-starred in a segment of the 2012 'found footage' horror anthology 'V/H/S'. I think the filmmaking duo did an exceptional job on this (their debut feature film) and found it to be much better than a lot of critics (and 'found footage' movie haters) have made it out to be.

The story revolves around a newly wed couple, named Samantha and Zach McCall (played by Allison Miller and Zach Gilford), that go on their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. After Samantha gets a weird reading from a fortune teller the two are led to a remote bar (outside the city) by a persistent cab driver (Roger Payano). They both get wasted (on shots) and pass out. It then appears that Samantha is taken to a room, beneath the club, where some kind of ritual is performed on her. When they return home they find out she's pregnant, despite the fact that Samantha has always regularly taken her birth control pills. The two decide to keep the child and then things really get strange. It's of course all caught on video and compiled (from many different sources) for the viewer.

The film (like I said) got mostly bad reviews from critics and horror fans (that hate the 'found footage' genre). It did get a few good reviews (though) from some scary movie aficionados (like director Eli Roth and the popular horror website 'Bloody Disgusting'). I enjoyed the movie; I love the horror genre and like 'found footage' flicks, when they're done right. I think this one was done right; it's scary, funny and just a lot of fun to watch. The rookie directors did a great job and the script is smart and clever as well. The two leads were also adequate enough (for a film like this); the lead woman is very beautiful too and the lead guy reminds me a lot of a political radio and internet talk show host (I watch) named David Pakman. It's just an all around good fright flick, especially if you like the genre. Ignore the haters!

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This is a Rosemarys baby knock off, with some deviation from the basic "Devil gets a woman pregnant" story. It gets off to an extremely slow start, and doesn't really get interesting until roughly the middle. There are some effective scares and visual effects, but the story starts to get bogged down, and then gets buried by the horror scenes. These are horrific and bloody enough, but I wished they stayed more with the characters.

The actors were pretty good and did ok with what they were given to work with. Perhaps better directing would have helped. This movie might be worth a watch if you can't find anything better. The moral of the story is get out of the taxi if the driver offers to take you to a fun place.

The orphan Samantha (Allison Miller) gets married with Zach McCall (Zach Gilford) and they travel in honeymoon to Santo Domingo. In their last night in the Dominican Republic, the newlywed couple is invited by a taxi driver to go to a party in the outskirts of Santo Domingo. They drink too much and do not see that Sam is brought to a weird cult. They return to the United States and soon Sam discovers that she is pregnant. Along the pregnancy, Sam changes her behavior and becomes nervous and aggressive. On the night of the delivery, Zach witnesses weird events at home.

"Devil's Due" is a lame and cheap movie that uses the same storyline of "Rosemary's Baby". This rip-off could have the title "How to Destroy the Storyline of a Masterpiece with a Hand-held Camera and an Absurd Plot". Sam and Zach accepting to go to a slum in an unknown country with a stranger are among the greatest stupidities of the cinema industry. The new doctor uses the office of Dr. J. Ludka and no receptionist or nurse notices. The house of Sam and Zach is completely destroyed in a calm neighborhood and no neighbor observes. The use of camera as if it were Zach is nonsense in most of the situations. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Herdeiro do Diabo" ("Devil's Due")

Had a lot of hope for this movie. I liked the actors and they did well. Miller and Golford both played their parts excellent. Sam Anderson always plays whatever part he gets very well did great too.... I guess I'm just disappointed at the POV filming. POV just doen't add anything to a movie. I really believe this would have been a great movie otherwise but this Rosemary's Baby wannabe just doesn't cut it The story was great but whoever decide to film it this way made a huge mistake. STOP trying to film this way. It only worked in maybe Paranormal Activity 1 and 2.... That's it... Same goes for found footage movies. It worked in Blair Witch and that was all for that genre.

This was really deceptive marketing and hype that drew me into this movie. I am very sorry I went. The acting, directing, production design, continuity, editing and of course the story, screen writing and execution were just abysmal. There was nothing of quality in this film. The characters were stupid, the camera work was jarring "handheld reality TV" nonsense and on top of it all, the plot was told in a far superior manner by Roman Polanski in "Rosemary's Baby" forty years ago! It just shows that with some production money, a digital camera and some reality-TV "Blair Witch"/"Paranormal Activity"-type marketing approach, you can sell any kind of garbage to the American public. I urge you not to support this film, or any future endeavours of anyone involved with this project (cast, crew, director or screenwriters)....