Devil's Trail

It was just bad. It was like a Blair witch holding thw camera type movie with bits and pieces where the actors mention newer tv shows and such to try and sound modern. It's over all boring. Snooze fest and poor acting

Nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. Some witches, and that plotline went nowhere. A red-eyed beast, whose eyes are all you ever see, and two "survival" guys who fight the entire time. Things change up in the final five minutes of this monstrosity. Seriously. I think the movie was written around those final five minutes. Not worth your time. It certainly wasn't worth mine.

Pretty decent and captivating found footage movie about two men filming an episode for "survival in the wilderness" TV show, which was pretty much believable up until the ending. It's very, very similar to "Blair Witch" (even uses the same plot tropes and elements), but it's good enough not to be called a cheap rip-off. The chemistry between characters feels natural and the script is solid.

As for the ending...while the idea they used for the ending is interesting, the execution is extremely poor. So poor that if it wasn't there I'd rate the movie a solid 7/10, but it pretty much ruins the whole movie.

DEVIL's TRAIL tackles the lore of the Jersey Devil, a cryptid in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey, said to be a biped with hooves and wings and a mythology going back to the 1700s. Two survival show streamers go there to search for it within the framework of a 21-day survival challenge. Early on, they encounter a coven of witches and from then on their endeavor seems to be jinxed.

Other than the cryptid in question, this movie offers little that hasn't been in done countless other found footage movies before.

On the positive side, the Dallas character did do a fairly good job of portraying an awkward introvert who almost cracks under pressure. Also, there was some interesting information about outdoor survival (for example, prior to this movie, I had never heard of a Steripen), even though these two seem to still have done many survivalist faux pas that even I can recognize e.g. Not bringing gloves, maps or lighters.

The ending, which presents two twists back-to-back, is especially poorly executed. The first twist did not give enough information about exactly what was fake and what was real, and the second twist shows a horror scene exactly in the same style of the horror scene before the first twist. This seems like an amateur error in film-making: if you want to convince the audience that things are different now, show them differently!

So, I learned about the Jersey Devil and some basic aspects of survivalism (and that is why I did not rate the film lower), but everything else about this film is forgettable.

The entire time I was watching this found footage-style film I was struck by it being pretty much like The Blair Witch Project, but better in many respects. For example, you shouldn't get motion sickness from watching this. There are some big differences, though. At one point the two hikers (played by the director and a regular in some of his films), making a documentary about wilderness survival for a TV series, stumble upon three witches (or modern practitioners of a Wicca-like religion) performing a ceremony in the woods. These woman are all regulars in the other films by this production company. And they are all skyclad. Some have said this is gratuitous, but with the premise of real life witches as a religious belief, it's actually pretty authentic. They all have different personalities and take a little time to develop them. Then, later, we see that this was not just a random encounter. With symbols found in the woods and mysterious unseen visitors, this is all tied in to what's going on. Whereas the ending of The Blair Witch project is its only slightly redeeming value, the ending of this movie unfortunately doesn't meet that standard, in my opinion. I can't really get more into it than that without giving spoilers, but let's just say that it was a missed opportunity. Still, I appreciate what they were trying to do with this film, and they didn't scam a bunch of impressionable kids into thinking it was real and screw the actors over, like those other guys did.