Shookum Hills

'The Devil Below' is also known as 'Shookum Hills'. Like many other horror films, this one starts off interesting and mysterious, and then plummets to all too familiar, cliched ground.

The sub-standard visual effects makes it hard to believe 'The Devil Below' was made in 2021. Even some 80's films incorporating demons or devils have better monster effects. The film's first half was eerie and ominous, but I must admit I never really cared about any of the stereotypical characters. Alicia Sanz tried so hard to act all macho as the film's heroin Arianne, but I didn't really buy it. And as for Schuttmann (Will Patton) who saves the day, this character was only there when he was needed. He didn't really contribute much to the film, despite him harboring a grudge against the creatures.

The film gave me a sense of 'Silent Hill' vs 'The Descent', only not nearly as good as any of these. The last few minutes are also too weird, and badly photographed.

Would I watch it again? No.

Strong start. Visually pleasing. Great suspense elements. And then character development screeches to a half, picture gets blurry and erratic and suddenly you have no idea what's going on and you kind of don't care.

It might have been a good film but I will never know, it was filmed in stygian darkness, who was doing what to who and why will remain a mystery, as I could not make out what was going on, and why did they not call in the US Army to deal with whatever it was? filming great parts of films in darkness seems to be a trend lately, does it save money on sets? or Lighting? I don't know but it is tiresome.

One of those films which makes absolutely no practical sense. Cliche after cliche, inaccurate technical details and an old play on the heroine. Cookie cutter to put it bluntly. The character actions did not portray, even remotely, the common sense anyone would immediately have. The monster was same ole, same ole. The bad guys more common than usual with the usual, obvious twist. I successfully predicted all the elements of this film before they occurred. Anyone could. Anyone will. However, my gf did like it so I let it play. I've seen much better monster/creature films but I've also seen more monster films which are worse, a lot worse. All in all, you can watch it but it won't really do much for ya. Unless, of course, you are rather new to monster/creature features.

This is not a perfect movie. It is also nowhere near the worst of all time. It is a low budget horror movie, and not a bad one. Hollywood dumps worse than this in theaters every January and late August.