Devil May Call

I don't know if i watched the same film as the other reviewers to be honest, I didn't witness great acting, jumpy scenes or anything they have said was so good. Too convenient situations, lame script and a ridiculous bad guy. I laughed and raised an eyebrow more than jumping or being concerned for the characters. Trash! Its boring, slow, predictable and just yawn! I wouldn't suggest it to anyone, never gonna get that time back. I don't want to give too much away but suffice to say it's not worth the trouble or your electricity usage. Not only is the bad guy a psycho, he is an aggravating geezer with insect issue...... really? i mean seriously really?

Pretty blind counsellor Sam (Corri English) is on her last ever shift at the crisis centre when serial killer John (Tyler Mane), a regular user of the hot-line, pays a visit.

Devil May Call is pretty much what I expected from a horror film starring an ex-WCW wrestler and an ageing ex-pornstar: nothing to phone home about. To be fair, the film opens promisingly with a neat title sequence during which we hear a series of desperate calls to a crisis hot-line, followed by a tense scene in which a victim of serial killer John attempts to escape from the psycho's home while he is speaking to Sam on the phone. If only the rest of the film had been as 'edge of the seat', we might have had a unexpected treat on our hands.

As it stands, the film is a massive disappointment, with a predictable plot that plays out in dreary fashion until the forgettable finale (I won't go into detail since I've already forgotten how the film ends). Mane, as hulking weirdo John, is mildly menacing due to his size, but the film fails to chill or thrill as it should, director Jason Cuadrado fumbling the intended jump-scares and delivering zilch in the way of gore. Traci Lords, once every teenage boys' wet dream, plays Val, an unmarried middle-aged counsellor obsessed with cats.

First, a golden nugget of wisdom: "I always believed that survivors of trauma make the best counselors. Knowing the road, that's what makes a great guide. Every bit of change has a certain amount of push-back. You have to find the strength to know that you can fight it again, no matter what shape it takes."

This movie has a lot of great quotes, but I want to focus on the story.

Corrie English did an amazing job as Sam. I love the realism in this movie, as most of the characters have substance, a backstory.

As someone who has friends who've worked in call centers, and as someone who's volunteered for sort of a peer role in a similar way, this film hits home in a lot of ways.

John was an interesting character, but he wasn't explored very much in the ways of depth. He's clearly seen as an outcast with anger issues, and he hates the way people treat him. The only thing that makes him feel normal, or at peace, is talking to Sam, so he's become a repeated caller to Sam's crisis center. When he finds out through someone else that she's leaving, well... he tracks her down. What was once his place of comfort was the source of his greatest anger and rage.

Things like this happen, sometimes. It might not happen in the same way, but the story is pretty realistic in the way it represents the emotions of both the staff and the callers with certain issues.

Great film, and I especially like the narration at the end.

I'm not sure why this movie has such a low rating. I think it's great the way they implemented horror vibes to an otherwise dramatic plot of a suicide call center. The film was well done in all aspects.

Absolutely horrific, story was boring and pointless. Bad acting, not so scary villan and the saviour boy of the day was pathetic.

Only watch if you have literally nothing else to watch.

DEVIL MAY CALL is another entry in the long-running sub-genre of "blind women in peril" movies. Highlights of this sub-genre include the likes of WAIT UNTIL DARK, BLIND TERROR, and many others, but this insipid piece is even worse than the recent cheese of PENTHOUSE NORTH. The grey, washed-out cinematography is the perfect accompaniment to the blandest of story lines. A hotline operator finds herself stalked by one of her clients, a deeply disturbed guy with murder in mind. He turns up at her place of work one night, and murders ensue...

Where to start with this film? Everything's wrong about it, from the forgettable acting to the one-dimensional characters (including much of the 'cannon fodder' supporting cast), poor script, silly kill scenes, and an almost entire lack of menace throughout. Corri English is acceptable in the central role - playing a blind character is never easy - but everyone else is poor. This includes B-movie starlet Traci Lords and Tyler Mane (X-MEN), the latter playing the rather uninteresting killer. Despite the short running time, this goes on and on for what seems like an age, until an ending which cuts things off abruptly just when it was getting interesting.