I Trapped the Devil

Not a good one, not very entertaining either.

The rhythm is so slow!

The acting is bad, or at least, the actors are. The one actress is pretty good. But she's not saving anything. Mind you, the script is absolutely terrible. I don't think they could have done anything about it.

It had potential, though. The plot subject is not bad. But it's conducted so horrendously! The motives of the characters are undefined from the beginning to the end. Worse: they literally disappear at times, for sequences of 5, 10 minutes! You just can't figure what, exactly, is happening anymore.

It is incoherent, often absurd, as in "it doesn't making any sense what so ever" until they catch it up for a few more minutes, until the next anecdotal hole. It's a bit as if a 30 minutes plot had been extended with empty lines to fill 90 minutes.

Strangely, the soundtrack is not bad at all. It would have supported a good, mysterious, atmospheric plot line. But in these circumstances, it's a relatively pleasant oddity in the middle of boredom.

I wouldn't call it a total loss. But there are far better flicks out there. Almost anywhere...

The film makers did a lot with very little here as the budget is obviously tiny. The atmosphere quickly becomes quite creepy and a feeling of dread starts to build. I watch horror films regularly and it is rare to find one that creates a real sense of uneasiness and apprehension like this does, for me that is where true horror lies so massive credit to the film makers for that.

Unfortunately there was just not enough information and the script was quite poor. There's a guy in the basement who Steve believes to be the devil: how did he get there? why does he think he's the devil? These questions are not asked by his brother Matt or his wife and this just seems beyond ridiculous. Although there is some hinting at a traumatic incident in the past and Steve's sanity is questioned there is just not enough back story and the dialogue is quite limited so you end up frustrated because there is never any real explanation for how this situation arose.

I appreciate sometimes directors want to leave things open for the viewer to interpret how they want but for me there were just too many unanswered questions which left me unsatisfied at the end.

*NON-SPOILER*

The whole film is a build up to something that is a massive let down. The film makes zero sense. How did the devil get trapped to begin with!? Surely that would be explained given the circumstances?? It's just a ridiculous movie throughout, but I have seen worse, which saves it from the 1 star.

This movie was definitely inspired by Rod Serling's 1960 Twilight Zone episode titled, "the Howling Man" (Season 2 Episode 5). It was made more involved with a psychotic gatekeeper, as opposed to a religious zealot keeping Satan under wraps. But, you can see the similarities in the plot.

Ending was an insult and major letdown, the slow burn just doesn't pay off here at all...I gave 4 stars for the atmosphere and premise, just a bad attempt though all around. Come on IFC, you used to do better than this!