SUMMARY
Craftsmanship (cinematography, acting, sound, music, etc.): 4/5
Story: 1/5
Total: 5/10
On the positive side, the fundamental workmanship of DEVIL IN THE DARK is very professional. The movie looks polished, the acting is believable for the most part, and the music and sound work well together to create a solid basis for a decently scary flick.
On the negative side, while all the ingredients are definitely there for a reasonably good story, they're all just left on the counter as it were. The complete structure of the story is never put together. While I always tick the IMDb review submission checkbox that says "may contain spoilers" as a basic safety precaution (because the folks at IMDb make it clear that if you DON'T and your review happens to contain a spoiler or two, you can kiss your IMDb account goodbye), it's actually a little difficult to write a spoiler because there are very few places in the story where I fully understand the meaning of what is going on and why. So it's difficult to reveal what I don't know.
As examples
I'm not really sure about the nature of the antagonist being(s). I don't even know for sure if there's one or more of them. Utterly nothing about it/them is ever explained: not what it/they are, not where it/they came from, any objectives and so on. Short of a freeze-frame, we don't even really get a good look at them as the movie takes pains not to show them to us. For all I can tell the entity/monster is nothing more than a crazy person in a suit with big deer antlers glued on.
I THINK there is a supernatural element to the goings-on, but I don't KNOW this. I more or less extrapolate this strictly from a couple of situations where the protagonist's eyes go all-black (the traditional visual effect for supernatural possession ) and they become enthralled.
There are deer antlers practically everywhere that has anything to do with the entity/creature/whatever. What's that all about?
The entity/creature/whatever appears to be in the habit of kidnapping people. For what reason?
One of the two main protagonists is clearly dead just before the end of the picture. And then, during the last half second of the last scene, he isn't. Huh?
What are the crows all about? What's with all the crows? Do they have some relationship to the entity/creature/whatever?
And the list goes on. Essentially, almost no answers about anything are given. Even questions regarding mundane interpersonal family issues are left unanswered. Did the father do something bad?
In the professional reviews of DEVIL IN THE DARK, much is made about the brotherly conflict between the two main protagonists; this is not surprising since the bulk of the movie is mostly devoted to depicting their interpersonal conflict in scene after scene. Certainly the movie portrays the two brothers as having practically nothing in common across the board right down to a variation of the "dad liked you best" fraternal resentment. The professional reviewers drone on and on about the conflict between the two brothers. Interestingly, in my opinion, the origin of this conflict is one of the few things clearly explained in the movie, and yet none of the professional reviewers even mention it.
Years ago, the younger brother, while only a little older than a toddler, had an absolutely terrifying brush with the entity/creature/whatever, all alone in the dark, dark woods, barely escaping the clutches of the thing at the last second, a fact none of the rest of the family are aware. Given that being out in the woods and hunting and suchlike was practically the theme of the family, it would certainly be no surprise that the younger brother would not be able to fit into that context from that point forward. Why does no one mention this?
My big hope for this movie is that it's the first part of a two-part set. If a sequel were made, all of these issues could be dealt with and all of the questions could be appropriately answered. If this were to happen then this first movie, instead of coming off as a sort of half-baked mess in which literally nothing is explained or resolved, could then be viewed in a far more positive light.
Craftsmanship (cinematography, acting, sound, music, etc.): 4/5
Story: 1/5
Total: 5/10
On the positive side, the fundamental workmanship of DEVIL IN THE DARK is very professional. The movie looks polished, the acting is believable for the most part, and the music and sound work well together to create a solid basis for a decently scary flick.
On the negative side, while all the ingredients are definitely there for a reasonably good story, they're all just left on the counter as it were. The complete structure of the story is never put together. While I always tick the IMDb review submission checkbox that says "may contain spoilers" as a basic safety precaution (because the folks at IMDb make it clear that if you DON'T and your review happens to contain a spoiler or two, you can kiss your IMDb account goodbye), it's actually a little difficult to write a spoiler because there are very few places in the story where I fully understand the meaning of what is going on and why. So it's difficult to reveal what I don't know.
As examples
I'm not really sure about the nature of the antagonist being(s). I don't even know for sure if there's one or more of them. Utterly nothing about it/them is ever explained: not what it/they are, not where it/they came from, any objectives and so on. Short of a freeze-frame, we don't even really get a good look at them as the movie takes pains not to show them to us. For all I can tell the entity/monster is nothing more than a crazy person in a suit with big deer antlers glued on.
I THINK there is a supernatural element to the goings-on, but I don't KNOW this. I more or less extrapolate this strictly from a couple of situations where the protagonist's eyes go all-black (the traditional visual effect for supernatural possession ) and they become enthralled.
There are deer antlers practically everywhere that has anything to do with the entity/creature/whatever. What's that all about?
The entity/creature/whatever appears to be in the habit of kidnapping people. For what reason?
One of the two main protagonists is clearly dead just before the end of the picture. And then, during the last half second of the last scene, he isn't. Huh?
What are the crows all about? What's with all the crows? Do they have some relationship to the entity/creature/whatever?
And the list goes on. Essentially, almost no answers about anything are given. Even questions regarding mundane interpersonal family issues are left unanswered. Did the father do something bad?
In the professional reviews of DEVIL IN THE DARK, much is made about the brotherly conflict between the two main protagonists; this is not surprising since the bulk of the movie is mostly devoted to depicting their interpersonal conflict in scene after scene. Certainly the movie portrays the two brothers as having practically nothing in common across the board right down to a variation of the "dad liked you best" fraternal resentment. The professional reviewers drone on and on about the conflict between the two brothers. Interestingly, in my opinion, the origin of this conflict is one of the few things clearly explained in the movie, and yet none of the professional reviewers even mention it.
Years ago, the younger brother, while only a little older than a toddler, had an absolutely terrifying brush with the entity/creature/whatever, all alone in the dark, dark woods, barely escaping the clutches of the thing at the last second, a fact none of the rest of the family are aware. Given that being out in the woods and hunting and suchlike was practically the theme of the family, it would certainly be no surprise that the younger brother would not be able to fit into that context from that point forward. Why does no one mention this?
My big hope for this movie is that it's the first part of a two-part set. If a sequel were made, all of these issues could be dealt with and all of the questions could be appropriately answered. If this were to happen then this first movie, instead of coming off as a sort of half-baked mess in which literally nothing is explained or resolved, could then be viewed in a far more positive light.