Il figlio del Male

This "movie" is a pretty pathetic waste of time. Outside of a chilling (but predictable) performance by Thomas Gibson as The Devil, this movie really stinks. All the major horror clichés are stolen from ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE OMEN- there is NOTHING the viewer won't see coming as any sort of shock or surprise. Good performers like Matthew Lillard and Kim Delaney don't add anything. For a supernatural tale, there's really nothing in the way of special effects. The script is terrible, and the direction barely adequate. It blows me away that anyone connected with this film would waste time and money to create this piece of trash, even for something concocted for TV.

A woman's mother makes a deal with the devil to save the daughter from dying. 20 years later the devil returns to claim retribution. Sounds compelling but in reality, this is a dull, listless show with little originality. Kim Delaney adds some semblance of good acting but what grates me is that the plot is a pure rip-off from previous movies. Thomas Gibson is too straight faced and nice looking to be evil. The Devil's Child lacks any new ideas and whichever way the story moves, you know you've seen it before. The finale is as close to any mediocre B-grade horror movie you can find.

Though this is a supernatural film, it is still unbelievable in some sense. Seeing that the Devil has powers all that live on earth (in this movie), why can't he simply appear when Kim is about to leave with the child, but instead allows her to take him away for good? Couldn't he make her fall along the way and then just pick the baby up? Or send someone to shoot her and then pick up the baby? Since he can command a girl to kill Lilliard's character, this shows he has powers over the mind, so why didn't he?

Another grouse I have is that why does every supernatural movie with Christian overtones always involve the Catholic church? Don't the denominations believe in the soul and the devil as well? It get boring after a while when you forever see the Catholic church as either the Saviour of the world or the Scourge of the world.

Anyway, the moral of this story is: don't promise what you later would regret.

Another example of Kim Delaney making a poor script believable. More Catholic bashing and supernatural happenings. Unfortunately, the producers decided to kill off Larry Holden early...an interesting character actor who could have added life to this otherwise dull film. At least Kim has a recurring television role to sustain her. Sigh.

I watched this more out of morbid curiosity than from any real desire to see what happened next. Every cliche in the book is here, plus red herrings that have absolutely nothing to do with the plot that seem to be pursued way too far.

I loved their casting of Alex, though. He's a total dreamboat -- powerfully magnetic, sensual, articulate, and just wicked enough to hold the attention. Stole every scene he was in, which wasn't too hard considering nobody else was even vaguely sympathetic. It's too bad the heroine wasn't more sympathetic.. it was hard to care about her at all (or see why anybody else cared about her), she was so rude, self-obsessed, almost abusive, and brittle.

I also really disliked the directing -- every trick in the book is employed, or rather overemployed, such as ominous music, sudden noises, and excessive foreshadowing. Basically, this was just a very non-thrilling thriller that said nothing new at all.