Devil's Due

"Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming." While on their honeymoon Samantha (Miller) and Zach (Gilford) decide to go out clubbing and end up drinking more then planned and some of their trip is fuzzy. When they return home they are both surprised and excited when they find out Samantha is pregnant. What starts off as something happy begins to change when Samantha begins to act strangely. As I have said many times I try to watch as many movies as I can without seeing the previews first. I did that with this one and was very disappointed when I found out it was another found footage movie. That type of horror movie worked with the Blair Witch Project because it was new and everyone thought that it was real. To a lesser extent it also worked for the first Paranormal Activity because again at that time it was still new. Now that every other horror comes like this the "realism" is lost and just becomes more annoying then anything. Found footage aside there are many other problems with the movie. The first 20 minutes feels like someone forcing you to watch their bad home movies. It never really gets much more exciting then that. On a side note the movie Hell Baby which was a comedic version of this subject was much better then this one. Overall, yet another found footage horror movie that wasn't scary. It's almost time for this genre to stop. I give this a C.

Absolute Dogsh*t is a term that cannot be used enough to describe this movie. I hated the characters (especially the tw*t of a husband), the stupid shaky-cam, the "scares", the pathetic sub-plot of an ancient cult, the trailer that gave away absolutely everything, and did I mention the tw*t of a husband? No doubt there'll be a sequel, and another, and another. Remember when there were actually good horror found-footage films? Me neither. Hollywood is just saturated with them, none of them good. A complete and terrible rip-off of Rosemary's Baby. Just don't watch it. If I could give it a minus rating I would. Definitely in the category of one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

'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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First of all, I am a big fan of the found footage supernatural/horror genre and love watching even the lesser acclaimed films. I am the type of viewer that draws the positives out of a very flawed film and enjoy it. So I expected to enjoy something out of this at the very least.

My god, what a tediously insufferable film this turned out to be.

There is absolutely no innovation or any attempt to try something new. It is so painfully boring.

The concept idea was very promising which is basically a found footage rendition of The Omen or Rosemary's baby. However, this film is so dire at engaging the audience due to the most irritable protagonist I have ever seen so far in a found footage type movie. For more than half of the movie, we are tortured with the sickly saccharine antics of a doting husband on his newly wed wife. There is no natural humour to ease the torment and worse for a film of this type, there were actually no scares until the last act.

As I said, I am the type of film goer that draws the positives and try enjoy that. So are there any? Well, there is a dog that was amusing for 2 seconds but even he looked bored, thereafter. OK, there is a bit more positives. You do get a predictable climax in an attempt to "reward " us for our eternal patience which was efficiently executed but without any unique vision or flair, just the usual creep around corridors and..."boo" oh it was just the dog sort of thing. The actors do perform well but the material they have to work with is revolting.

At the end of the credits there is a piece of text explaining that this film created 200,000 jobs. Well that was nice to know and the only bit that made me feel good knowing that at least it gave a lot of people work but then I wonder if stating that was an indirect apology and their justification to make this dreadfully boring movie?

TO be fair, the film is as polished as it can be for a found footage genre but its all pointless if it fails to engage us in the narrative.

If you haven't seen many horror films or supernatural films such as Paranormal Activity etc, then perhaps you might enjoy this more as long as you can stomach the vomit inducing newly weds for half of the movie.

I give this a 3/10 rating, mostly for the dog that looked fairly convincing in not wanting to be in the movie. Get a new agent doggy, you deserve better.

1st watched 1/18/2014 – 4 out of 10(Dir:Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillet): Eerie story about a wife's possession by the Devil to attempt to produce one of his own thru her. The movie is filmed entirely in first person similar to the Blair Witch Project but more like Cloverfield --- but unfortunately the point of view changes which makes it kind of confusing. It starts as a newlywed couple vacation on their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. Nothing is really revealed abnormal about the couple except that the wife is a foster child with a supposed past hard life. They are having a typical good time, but then decide to take a detour to an underground party after being coaxed by a local taxi driver. After they get a little too toasted we see a brief glimpse of some footage at a strange religious ceremony, but then are taken back to footage of them arriving from their vacation back into their new home. We find out later that ceremony has much to do about what happens next. The wife becomes pregnant despite being on the pill, and immediately starts suspecting that there are problems with the baby. She then starts doing strange things like eating raw meat at a grocery store(despite being a vegetarian), causing preachers to cough up blood, and taking night walks into the wild to kill deer and munch of their innards…so naturally the husband starts questioning something awry is going on….you think?? The movie is scary at times but because it is so predictable you just wait for the eerie things to happen(and they do). There is eventually a story told here that makes some sense as to why things happened but there are a lot of holes to it as well. I will leave out a lot of the specifics just in case you want to watch this movie about an antichrist possession….i'm not sure why I wanted to watch it myself…I think I was just challenging myself…but overall this is just not that great of a movie, and the creepy feeling only lasted for a short while after the movie was over.