The Devil

Videoasia has just released several two-fers under the collection called "Tales of Voodoo". Be aware that Volume 3 was supposed to contain "The Devil's Express" and "The Rapist". I have been trying to find a DVD version of "The Devil's Express" for years and was ecstatic to allegedly find it here for $7.99! However upon playing the disc I was disappointed to find the movie is actually " The Devil'". The other reviewers have already given a fair description of the film. I would like to add that this DVD collection has no menu, the film just begins and replays in a continuous loop, and no extras. Actually, the packaging is the best part of the product. The box does state, "Stiff as a corpse unanimated menus and pine box quality chapter feature" so I guess they are being honest. Buyer beware!

In the opening scene of The Devil, a woman performs a magic ritual on a man covered from head to foot in erupting boils and lacerations; she opens up his stomach with a knife, fishes around in his maggot-infested guts and removes all manner of muck before patching him up. After this promising start, the film goes rapidly downhill.

The rest of this dreadfully inept movie deals with the tale of an avenging ghost whose victims cough up bucket loads of snakes and multi-coloured goop before finally kicking the bucket. Although this sounds like a gorehound's dream-come-true, the effects are lame and the excruciatingly awful scenes between the 'mucky' bits would test the patience of even the most obsessive horror fan.

In fact, the only reason I can possibly think of for recommending this dreadful film to anyone is that you will get to witness one of the most bizarre cinematic characters ever in the form of 'Ding Dong', the annoying camp bellboy; his outfits are so gay they will have you sniggering uncontrollably.

So. if you wish to see a small boy sporting tight white shorts, braces and a cap, or a fetching Sgt. Pepper style uniform, go ahead and enjoy; otherwise, I would stay well away.

Some deformed looking b···· is running around, making men puke worms and s···. The Devil is a typical far east Asian horror movie that contains vomiting and snakes and so forth. You know, the usual far east malarkey. I thought this one was good. It does contain some very gruesome body horror sequences, it's paced rather well and has an okay story. And I hate that little f····· Ding Dong. God! Asian kids are just the worst. This kid is just a whiny s··· with a gay bellboy costume. So annoying. Regardless, if you like Asian black magic movies, give this one a whirl.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of The Devil; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.50 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 1.00 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 6.25 out of 10

The devil is one of those films you have to stay with until the end. It's only at this moment that everything becomes clear. And, I have to say, the story threw me, and I had the wrong character named the killer.

That was due to the story being a tad misleading, but aren't the best mysteries{?) Just ask Agatha Christie about red herrings. The main problem is the slowness of the unfolding story. There are a few periods which acquire a smidgen of dullness. The slowness comes after the opening sequence and picks up midway. The writers use this to build the characters, the mystery, and the relationships. It isn't too awful, though it could have been more entertaining. The entertainment comes from the young hotel porter. This kid is cunning, quick-witted, and extremely humourous. I wish some of his traits had rubbed off on the other characters in the story. Apart from him and the bad guy, the others are underwritten. They are too ordinary, and as such, a tad boring. But once the story gets going and the spells cast, hold on tight and get those grey cells working to figure out who the killer is.

The direction is sound and pretty entertaining, especially the gross-out effects. Note I didn't say special effects. No, the best FX in this film are all too real. Drop some red and green liquid on the victim under the spell, and then get them to spew up a few live worms or maggots - Urgh! I feel sorry for these actors and actresses. It's nothing special, but it works marvellously. There is one nasty special effects scene at the start. One victim is having his curse lifted. The removal requires the sorceress to open up the guy's stomach and remove all the creepy crawlies inside. However, as with the story, the drawback is the slowness of the film's pacing. Some scenes required more crispness and quicker cuts as they didn't need to be so long.

The acting is okay. The kid playing the young Hotel Porter stands out in this film. That is as much down to his written character as the child's performance, which is excellent.

The Devil is a good and entertaining movie, though a dash slow at the start. I would happily recommend it to all the horror fans out there, especially the Gore-Hounds and the Scooby Gangs. I may partake of this magical mystery film again, some time.

Please feel free to visit my Absolute Horror list to see where I ranked The Devil.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of this era of Hong Kong horror films. I love a lot of the CAT III sleaze/exploit/horror stuff that came later, and I love most Japanese horror/exploit/pinky stuff from the 60's through today - but I find most of the horror films that came out of the early 80's in Hong Kong to be pretty much the same story told in different ways - usually pretty ineffectively. This is no different with THE DEVIL - but this one is done better than the previous attempts that I've seen.

The story behind THE DEVIL is of a con-man who infiltrates a relatively wealthy family who owns a hotel, when the hotel bell boy, Ding-Dong (?!?), plays a little match-making with the hotel owners daughter. It's found out that the con-man has done this sort of thing before, and when he's exposed and inadvertently causes the death of the hotel owner, the matron of the family puts a curse on him. At the same time that this is happening, random people are coming into contact with some sort of witch that lives in the woods that makes her "victims" puke worms, maggot, centipedes, slime, and blood in pretty gruesome fashion when she "possesses" them...

The story behind THE DEVIL is relatively straight-forward and isn't quite as confusing as some of the other similar films from this genre that I've seen - but there were still plenty of moments when I lost track of the characters, or why certain things were happening. Luckily, there were enough worm-puking scenes (which seems to be a "staple" of these kinds of films - but THE DEVIL does them better...) to keep me relatively entertained. Unfortunately though, other than a chick getting her face smashed with a rock, and a guy having insects, worms, and snakes cleaned out of his guts in the very beginning...the worm-puking scenes are the only other type of gore scenes, and end up being kinda redundant after the first few times. Even so, this one was a little more enjoyable than some of the others I've seen, and I would recommend THE DEVIL to fans of such films as SEEDING OF A GHOST, DEVIL FETUS, or CENTIPEDE HORROR. 6/10