The Devil's Hand

to start it out,i was going to the theater and i was like oh my god what um doing to myself why did i decide to go and watch such a movie,i expected to watch the same stupid and trash horror movies that i've been watching for years but it turned out the movie wasn't that bad,the production and directing were a bit weak though.. i know that this is a kind of movie that u will not remember as soon as you get out from the theater and probably you won't even want to remember anything about it but the movie has it's entertaining moments that u will be able to enjoy if you cleared your mind of the negative thoughts that you've been holding since you heard about this movie..

Let's start off by saying this movie does not reinvent the wheel and I don't think it tries. However I thought the story was compelling and the characters were entertaining enough to make me immerse in the story. You have some familiar faces with well-known actors and they are doing a great job depicting their characters whether they are good or evil. You have some gnarly kills and some decent gore that also enhances the watching experience. The overall story has been done before but I think the execution was fine and as soon as I started watching the movie I pretty much guessed the end so you might find it predictable. While this is certainly no masterpiece I think that if the plot summary sounds interesting to you, you should give it a try and see for yourself. [5,7/10]

I went in to this movie not really thinking it would be all great, Jennifer Carpenter (from TV's Dexter) was the swing-vote why I decided to go ahead with it.

However she was not really why I kept interest, cause frankly she wasn't that great in this one.

Luckily the other cast was slightly better, no Academy award winning performances or anything but decent enough.

I went in to it thinking it would be a horror, and even though the beginning of the movie does fall in line with that and there are horror elements that pop out from time to time in the movie I'd say it's first and foremost a drama.

And even though the horror segments are neatly orchestrated it often just don't feel like it's from the same movie sometimes, characters who at one point are shook up can in the next minute be going on their business like nothing happened, so yeah uneven direction for sure.

It's almost as if someone wrote a somewhat realistic day to day script what life in a cult would be like and then some big shots told someone else to re-write it to a horror instead so they just cut and pasted some horror segments into the script where it could fit.

And the ending is pretty awful.

5/10

I'm very torn about this. The idea and the beginning are pretty good, but I expected more mystery and action throughout the film. The poster spoils the ending, and it could be the reason why I was expecting the big reveal to happen earlier in the story rather than in the last 5 minutes.

The hooded figure that goes around killing people is simply too goofy to be scary, and in general the atmosphere is not tense enough. Plus, I'm no expert but I don't think it's a good representation of an Amish community.

I think the acting - I'm looking at you Alycia Debnam-Carey and Jennifer Carpenter - and the ending are what carry this film. I ended up sympathising for the devil!

Side note: weird seeing Alycia Debnam-Carey and Thomas McDonell on screen together again, hehe.

This movie had some promising elements and very good production value. Despite what seems to be a modest budget, the lighting and technical aspects of the filmmaking on display here are all pretty top notch. The young female leads are also pretty strong and the fundamental idea behind the story seems like solid starting point.

Unfortunately, there's really not many more positive things I can think to add. The way the story unfolds is completely predictable and not even slightly interesting on any level. It's pretty much the same old same old that you see in any "powers of the devil"-type horror movie. No new ground is broken.

And while the movie is far from being terrible, it's just as far away from being good and ends up as a textbook example of genre mediocrity.