User Reviews

Devil's Prey (2020): An Angel and a Demon battle over the soul of a serial killer. Some good acting by the serial killer, angel and demon but bad acting by the earthly detective trying to track down the murderer. Crows are used to good effect as are the ghosts of the killer's past victims. His visions and hallucinations add to the weirdness Might have been a better film if the budget had been bigger. Written & Directed by Lincoln Casimir. On Prime. 5/10.

It's worth observing that this seems to be the first venture into film-making of Lincoln Casimir, who as far as I can tell writes, directs, and edits for the first time. I think it's only reasonable to grant some allowances on that basis; few are those filmmakers who can come right out of the gate with a big hit. So if the writing, direction, and editing feel amateurish, and the acting in turn, well, that's literally true - with such emphatic inexperience, what can we really expect? Even with that spirit of generosity well in mind, however, I find myself completely unable to offer the slightest measure of praise. I wish the best of luck to all involved in their future endeavors; may they develop their skills, and find success. 'Devil's prey,' however, is excruciating, and it's so poorly made in every regard that it's hard to watch.

The pacing is terribly rushed, squashing any possibility that the root ideas of any scene might bear fruit, and accentuating the inauthenticity at every turn. The direction is flat, altogether unpracticed, and heavy-handed; every now and again something is so ill-fitting in its execution that it seems like it belongs in an entirely different feature. The dialogue, scene writing, characterizations, and narrative are direly, hopelessly blunt, club-footed, and gawky, not to mention tiresomely forced, tactless, and bumbling. I recognize in occasional fleeting moments that one actor or another is earnestly trying to truly embody their character, and the spirit of the scene - though on the other hand, in some instances the acting is so astoundingly awful that one can readily see the performer breaking in front of the camera, unable to keep a straight face. In between these two opposite ends of the spectrum, by far the acting is largely so desperately untrained, labored, and insincere as to be genuinely cringe-worthy.

The fundamental image is tawdrily bare-faced, almost painful for our eyes; the sound design is unreliable, imbalanced, and sometimes just tinny. The sequencing is dubious, and even setting aside how it contributes to the awful pacing, the editing overall is sloppy and raises a skeptical eyebrow. Sometimes it almost seems like the audio isn't even synced with the video footage, or as if dialogue was dubbed in post-production. Any digital effects that are employed are glaring, and immediately betray the contrivance; I question even the cinematography in light of how plainly unprofessional, artless, and unskilled it is. Though it could easily be debated I think there are workable story ideas on hand; then again, even the best potential here requires major revision, and some thoughts put into the screenplay are simply rubbish. Plot development is sidelong and flimsy.

There are paths that 'Devil's prey,' as a concept, might have taken and found success. Any of these, however, would have required skill that no one here demonstrates at this point in their careers, and wit and intelligence exceeding what the screenplay seems to indicate. I can see that everyone who participated in the movie's creation was making an effort, but either those efforts were wildly insufficient, or they outright lacked the abilities that would allow those efforts to count for anything. Once more, I wish the best of luck for all involved, but if I said that this 2020 title were anything remotely worthwhile, anything but total refuse, I'd be lying. Not only can I not recommend this, but I strongly suggest actively avoiding it. There is no capacity in which 'Devil's prey' even begins to pass muster, and I wish I had not made the choice to watch it.

Struggling with a dark traumatic past, a man trying to hide his true self as a serial killer from the police detectives trying to catch him slowly begins unraveling mentally from the stress of everything a pair of angels trying to battle for his eternal soul try to tip the balance in their favor against him.

This was an incredibly frustrating and problematic effort. One of the biggest issues here is the complete confusion that arises out of the storyline which is incredibly involved yet never given any time to sort itself out. The feat involving the war between the angels, his past troubles affecting him and the missing child case with the investigating officers are all dropped on us immediately at the start of this one with little lead-in or build-up, making for a sort of jarring whiplash-effect trying to keep everything straight. One doesn't even lead into another factor, it's just all dropped on us without doing anything to separate it all, and given the intricacies of the main storylines involving both the two angels fighting each other and the serial killers' psychological torment, these especially need time to work out what's going on. While this eventually happens and everything becomes quite clear, it's not until later and the introduction to everything seems quite off-putting. That also manages to highlight a few inaccuracies with their own personal war that goes on throughout the film. The fact that the evil demon is actively trying to influence him for his personal gain without the good one interfering under orders not to makes it seem incredibly unbalanced about this process. If the end goal is to save him, then the not-interfering while the other one constantly does so offers up an easier chance of being corrupted by the more prominent figure in his life ruining their entire purpose to redeem him as the counterbalance against the negative impact. Moreover, the typical flaw associated with this genre tends to get introduced again where there's nothing given about why he's as special as he is to their battle, forcing them to battle over him for no real reason out of the billions of other people on the planet. This goes unexplained and could've used something else to tie into this storyline, which all together holds this one down. There are some enjoyable aspects here. The fact that this one is built around the serial killer's psychological breakdown from both his troubled past as well as the guilt over what he's doing is a major point and carried off quite impressively. As mentioned, this is all done to clarify a lot of the storylines from later on which gives us plenty of insight into the psychological breakdown as doing it through implanted visions or forced hallucinations between the two angels battling for his soul in their own private war. As they grow in intensity and vividness this one grows in interest as these far more frightening exploits including the grocery store confrontation, the breakdown at work and the memorable sequence in the church all helping this setup along. That also works for the rather satisfying finale, opting for a more realistic bent rather than the supernatural aspects that had been featured elsewhere which ends this on a rather fun note, giving it some really impressive aspects.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.