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.

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.

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.

As soon as I saw that the main character is a supermodel European giving tours of redneck America I knew it was gonna be bad. Not to mention they try to make her seem tough as nails, but she looks like she's never gone a day without a spa treatment. The movie isn't much better, but the main character tips the hand as to how bad this is.

I wanted to like this movie, but it was just ok. The acting is solid and some great atmospheric moments. The story is not all too original but still intriguing. Where the movie fails for me is in two spots. First, yes I know it is mostly at night, but parts are just too dark for the human eye. Second, the whole film is based around the monsters that we hardly get to see enough of. Worth a watch but keep your expectations low.