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Five people—young Sarah Caraway (Bojana Novakovic), elderly Jane Kowski (Jenny O'Hara), security guard Ben Larson (Bokeem Woodbine), mattress salesman Vince McCormick (Geoffrey Arend), and mechanic Tony Janekowski (Logan Marshall-Green)—become trapped in an elevator together. Two other security guards—Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) and Lustig (Matt Craven)—attempt to get the elevator operational again but, when one of the passengers (Vince) is suspected of assaulting Sarah, Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is called in to investigate.

Devil is based on a story by Indian-born film-maker M. Night Shyamalan (who also produced the movie) and a screenplay by American screenwriter Brian Nelson. Shyamalan acknowledged that the idea for the story came from British crime writer Dame Agatha Christie's 1939 novel And Then There Were None. Devil is the first story in The Night Chronicles, a trilogy of movies about the supernatural. The second movie is titled Reincarnate. The third movie is yet to be titled.

According to Ramirez's narration, the process of the Devil coming to claim the souls of wrong-doers always begins with a suicide, which summons him and invites him in.

When I was a child, my mother would tell me a story about how the Devil roams the Earth. Sometimes, she said, he would take human form so he could punish the damned on Earth before claiming their souls. The ones he chose would be gathered together and tortured as he hid amongst them, pretending to be one of them. I always believed my mother was telling me an old wives' tale... My mother's story would always begin the same way, with a suicide paving the way for the Devil's arrival. And it would always end with the deaths of all those trapped.

Sarah had been convicted of three counts of blackmailing rich married men and was in the process of divorcing her husband and squirreling away his money. Vince started a Ponzi scheme and bilked lots of people out of their money. Ben had a record of several assaults, including the beating of a guy into a coma with a baseball bat. Jane was shown stealing a lady's wallet. While drinking, Tony committed and got away with a hit-and-run accident that resulted in the death of a mother and her child.

Tony's fiancee arrives and informs Bowden that his full name is Tony Janekowski. Bowden realizes that they've misidentified Jane Kowski and that she is the unidentified person. As Tony cradles a dying Sarah in his arms, the old woman rises up, her eyes totally black, revealing herself to be the Devil. She informs Tony that it is now his turn to die. Tony flashes back to the hit-and-run accident five years ago in which he smashed into another car, killing a woman and her child, while he was reaching for a beer. He begs the Devil to take him instead of Sarah, but the Devil refuses, so he grabs the walkie-talkie and confesses his crime to Bowden, not realizing that it was Bowden's wife and son he killed. "Damn," says the Devil. "I really wanted you." Suddenly, all systems come back online, and the firefighters are able to pry open the elevator doors. Tony is taken into custody, but the Old Woman is gone. On their way to the police station, Bowden reveals that it was his wife and child who Tony killed. "I've been waiting for this moment for fives years," Bowden says. "All the things I'd say to you and what I'd do. The thing is...I forgive you." In a final voiceover, Ramirez says, "After my mother would finish her story, she would always comfort us. "Don't worry," she'd say. 'If the Devil is real, then God must be real, too.'"

By the end of the movie, seven characters are dead, starting with the suicide at the beginning of the movie. Of the five people trapped in the elevator, only Tony survives. A mirror breaks and a shard of glass slices Vince's jugular, Jane is hanged from a cable, Ben has his neck broken, and Sarah's throat is cut. Lustig is electrocuted, and repair technician Dwight (Joe Cobden) falls down the elevator shaft. It is also shown in a flashback how Bowden's wife and son were killed in a car accident five years ago.