Shame the Devil

This movie was so boring and stupid that it hardly deserves two stars. But since it was a notch better than Agent Jade Black and The Turning, it gets two stars. Deep down, I'm embarrassed about it.

What is it with me the last weeks seeing flicks that i didn't like at all and let this one be filed under that name, a real shame. To be honest, it's the name Doug Bradley that attracted me but face it, he's just the voice that you hear off camera. So don't think that you will see Doug in this flick, you will never will except for a few seconds.

The opening of Shame The Devil did ring a bell, did anyone of you geeks has seen the Saw franchise well then you will recognize the rip-off. But okay, I could live with that fact. But once things go wrong it goes awry wrong with this flick. You just couldn't care if someone survives or die or what is going on. While I was attending this flick I picked up a few times the remote to skip or even stop this nonsense.

There's no gore or horror to spot after the opening sequence. It's just a lot of blah blah and for the viewer a lot of yawning. Shame the director and sad to say, shame Doug!

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

While the setup can keep an attention span engaged for the first half of the film, it is the latter half where the script rides off the rails with improbable plot devices like poisons, antidotes, and polygraph-triggered lock boxes. Like many fictional serial killers, the maniac of "Shame the Devil" has a diabolical plan so ludicrous that even the detective and the profiler cannot pinpoint if he is killing violators of the Ten Commandments, men with the first names of Jesus' apostles, or following some other whacked out methodology entirely. Looking back on it when all is revealed, you realize that it is the most ridiculously overcomplicated scheme ever devised to accomplish what the objective ultimately is.

The film starts out with the main gore and pulls you in with a familiar "Let's play a game..."-type unseen villain. The rest of the film proceeds more like a psychological thriller. The story does have some plot holes and moments that a lot of viewers will spot and not be able to get around. Also, some scenes seemed to have extraneous dialogue slowing the pace of film, which may have been trimmed in a more high-end production. Introduction/explanation of some characters may also come across a little sloppy unless you are really paying attention. Nice use of locations. Decent performances by actors. Of note, Juliette Bennett pulls off the requisite balance of smart and sexy in her role. While not exactly treading new territory in the genre, it probably has enough to keep a casual viewer interested.

This is the first time I have been driven to write a review for IMDb but have done it purely as a public service to warn people off wasting 90 minutes of their lives on this bilge.

From the opening scene one imagines a second rate, British version of Saw. Sadly it is not even 3rd or 4th rate. Where as Saw has real menace, even if the franchise grew more tired as it wore on, this lack believability, tension, emotional depth and any sense of a real narrative to drive it forward.

None of the actors is bad mind you, they have simply been given dialogue that is at best clunky and at worse downright nonsensical.

Avoid.