Devil's Gate

The movie was good. Acting was ok, some people far better than others. The drawback is that the movie introduced so many interesting concepts but failed to fully develop any of them. The movie has about 3-4 good areas that if fleshed would make this an 7-8 hands down. But for the actors, the storyline and the scenery I'd give it a 5.

This film is overwrought and overacted and fits well into the middle of M. Night Shyamalan's middle years of film making. It does kind of look cool at times and some of the creature work is okay, with a couple of creepy scenes. Unfortunately, it leaves itself wide open for a sequel, but one hopes that won't happen.

FBI Special Agent Daria Francis (Amanda Schull) is assigned to travel to Devil's Gate, a small town in North Dakota, to investigate the disappearance of Maria Pritchard (Bridget Regan) and her son Jonah. Her prime suspect is the husband and father Jackson Pritchard (Milo Ventimiglia), who lives in a farm in the middle of nowhere. However Sheriff Gruenwell (Jonathan Frakes) asks Francis to let Jackson alone since he would be a good man. Deputy Conrad 'Colt' Salter (Shawn Ashmore) heads with Francis to interview Maria´s sister and she leaves her house convinced that Jackson may be hiding them. When they arrive at his farm, Jackson assaults Maria and she enters the house to investigate, and finds a weird thing. What is Jackson hiding?

"Devil´s Gate" is a surprisingly good and underrated sci-fi film. The screenplay is intriguing and the lead cast (Amanda Schull, Shawn Ashmore and Milo Ventimiglia have good performances. The conclusion after the initial credits is a cliffhanger for a possible sequence. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Set in the fictional town of Devil's Gate a federal agent teams with a local officer to investigate a missing wife & child. Trouble is their investigation leads them to the unbalanced husband and his trap filled home.

I expected horror, it was advertised as horror..........it's not really.

Milo Ventimiglia and Shawn Ashmore star in this interesting but ultimately flawed sci-fi movie which looks great but lacks in too many areas that matter.

Jonathan Frakes from Next Generation also stars and is particuly good, shame his role was a tad too small.

I liked the plot I did, even though I'm not a big sci-fi guy I think they did a good enough job here and left it open for potential sequels. Sadly it doesn't flow all too well and something just didn't sit right for me.

Watchable effort and this may really appeal to some, for me it was a deeply average offering.

The Good:

Decent plot

Jonathan Frakes

Great opening sequence

The Bad:

Poorly paced

Seriously, stop killing pets in every damn movie

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Milo Ventimiglia plays unhinged characters far too well

I would happily live in that house, yes I'm weird

A mystery thriller with solid acting, solid production (tv-scale) and well, a story that boild down to its core is VERY standard (todays term: generic) and predictable, even the end is a genre cliche par excellence.

Anyway, if you like such movies with a little X Files taste, you may dare to watch, it won't kill you, but just don't expect anything outstanding like some of those super-positive (fake!?) reviews try to sell you. An okay watch for a rainy afternoon with nothing else to do.