Devil's Mile

So, the acting was not that bad to be honest, and the concept was OK, but the effects were cheap and horrible, and the plot was boring and went nowhere. With a huge budget, alright maybe, but this is a low-budget flick and just obviously cheap.

Let me premise this by confessing I am a huge horror fan. I don't consider my time wasted watching what casual and occasional horror viewers probably consider rot. I'm not sure why, but I finished this. I think I just wanted to know where all this aimless wandering ended up. It had some redeemable moments. And the ending may have been the most concise part of the film.

I read the reviews before I watched it, and I almost didn't watch it, but I felt like watching some rubbish, and you know, I'm glad this was it.

Not because it's rubbish, but because there's so much more here than meets the eye.

It starts out simple enough, after the grab, after the kidnapping. There's a tiny hint, a little bit of predestination, and a fair bit of creepy at that.

The actresses are pretty good, the actor playing the male kidnapper is not quite as good, but he's passable, and the two other men do a reasonable job actually.

There are twists in this movie. One made me feel clever because I saw it coming even if I couldn't tell you why. The other... the other slipped right past me...

I actually recommend watching this. It's a pleasant little gem.

Oh the genre of horror! There is no other genre of film that can lead to such profound disappointment, especially for fans like myself. Every year there are hundreds of so called "horror" films made around the world. Unfortunately of those hundreds of films it seems only 4 or 5 will be worth watching. Really scary! The kind of film that makes you jumpy for a couple of weeks after seeing it. While you take a shower you wonder if when you open your eyes after rinsing off the shampoo you'll see a silhouette on the other side of the shower curtain. Or after you start your car at night you'll see another set of eyes in your rear view mirror. They make you hyper aware of every sound in your apartment or house as you close you eyes to go to sleep.

This is not one of those films.

If you are not at all a horror film watcher & prefer movies like Ice Age or Nut Thief or whatever that recent Pixar film is called then this film might, **just might**, seem scary to you. Maybe. You'd have to scare pretty easily though.

I'm giving this movie at least 2 stars because the premise is a good one. Pretty original really. Some kidnappers take a short cut on a highway that turns out to be the highway to hell! The kidnapping gets botched and innocent people die. They are forced to confront their actions by supernatural forces bent on exacting revenge. Well, sort of. It get's really really, muddled near the end. In fact by the end it doesn't make any since at all.

And when I say "it doesn't make any since at all" I don't mean that in the "it got all weird and artsy" sense so you have to figure it out way, no, I simply mean it seems like the writers gave up and said "F**K it, End it, we're running out of cocaine and Jules said he will be out of contact after 6pm"....but then one of the interns had a couple of bumps so they kept writing for like 30 minutes and came up with the brilliant ending that you really shouldn't waste any of your life waiting for.

I'm not discouraging you from watching this film. I'm just saying if after you've watched it for 41 minutes and find yourself asking "Is this ever going to get any better?" The answer is NO. It only gets worse,

There was a good idea somewhere in 'Devil's Mile', and it did leave me quite intrigued. Even though part of me already worried reading the plot summary about whether the film would be muddled in execution, there was that trap. It was this idea though that was my main reason in seeing 'Devil's Mile', as well as liking a lot of films in the genres it fits under. It also didn't look too bad and the title is attention grabbing.

Really do wish that when seeing it that the film itself was as attention grabbing as the cover and title. 'Devil's Mile' is not an unwatchable film and have seen far worse films recently and overall, and in the genres it fits under. It is though in my view not a good film either, mostly a mess actually, and did fall in the potential traps it had from the get go. Decent potential but the devillish quality was sorely missing, there was not enough of it from the start and it continued to diminish until by the end there was nothing left.

'Devil's Mile' is not irredeemable. It doesn't look too bad visually, nothing that blows the mind but there is a grit and eeriness to the photography and the setting has atmosphere.

Also thought the actors did a reasonable job and they at least looked as though they were trying, considering what was given to them which was too little and pretty poor.

However, 'Devil's Mile' is a mess elsewhere and did too little with the potential that was there. It was not to do with that it was not trying. It was trying. If anything, there is a try too hard feel, like it wasn't sure what to do with itself and it gave off a muddled feel that affected the cohesion. Didn't see any of the things that the summary indicated there would be. To me, the pacing was not relentless, it moderately engaged to start with but very quickly went downhill and became very dull with a lot of going nowhere parts, narratively this was flimsy. The action-oriented parts were not enough and didn't have the necessary energy.

Nothing thrilling or horrifying in 'Devil's Mile' either. There is a complete lack of suspense and surprises, didn't see much grit, for it to convince as a crime thriller, and it fails too as a supernatural horror, again because the suspense is lacking, some of the horror looks afterthought-like and the excessive predictability and dull pace hurt it further. It would have been better for it to have done either or, which would have made the story more focused.

Script was in serious need of a tightening up and proof-reader, it's pedestrian and one can get lost trying to make sense of what is being said.

Overall, a mess but not an avoidable one. 3/10