THE MOVIE

Jacob Vargas in Universal's Devil.

Devil is a horror film and the first title in a trilogy of films that are unrelated but part of the same series called The Night Chronicles. All of the films in The Night Chronicles are produced by M. Night Shyamalan (the director of The Sixth Sense) and are intended to have similar horror themes while also promoting new directors. The first title, Devil is a fantastic debut for the series and a scary whodunit horror film with a twist that will leave you surprised and disturbed.

Devil tells the story of five seemingly ordinary people who become trapped in a skyscraper elevator. The majority of the film revolves around these five characters, their back stories and exposing whether these seemingly unrelated strangers actually know each other.

The movie is a fantastic thriller that genuinely leaves a mark with you. The story is well fleshed out, the twists are unique and will have you wanting to watch the film over again and the sheer amount of time spent in the elevator while still keeping viewer interest is an excellent example of how to build tension in a film.

No, we didn't turn this image from Devil upside down.

Devil is the perfect film that's perfect for a Saturday horror night with your friends. It's not incredibly intelligent and it's not a classic, but it's an easy watching, disturbing horror film that will have you reflecting upon what you've just watched.

VIDEO
The video presentation of Devil isn't overly impressive. The film looks its best when the scenes are focusing on the cityscapes, one scene that stands out is when shards of glass fall from a sky scraper, but the close up shots are a bit hit and miss.

This could be because the budget for Devil separates it from being a big budget blockbuster, but it is a little disappointing that the close up video can look a little washed out and bleak. The video quality for this VC-1 encoded film continually hovered around 30.0 Mbps on my PlayStation 3.

Trapped inside the elevator...

AUDIO
Fortunately the audio is a little more impressive with a satisfying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless audio encoding. The soundtrack creates tension and strong sounds like a jigsaw cutting into the concrete are strong and bold. The track really is an excellent inclusion, while the only criticism we have is that sometimes the voices are a little quiet.

Subtitles are provided in English, Spanish and French for those that require them.

EXTRAS
Overall the special features included on the Devil Blu-Ray are very weak by current standards. Not only are they short, but there isn't much content at all which is a shame. The only positive is that all of the special features included are in High Definition.

Deleted Scenes (3:56/HD): Devil is a slick film and there was no time for these three deleted scenes to be included in the film. None of these scenes are overly interesting and add only a little bit of back story to the people in the elevator. The film is fine without these scenes.

Exterior shots look particularly impressive.

The Story (2:32/HD): This featurette really just contains a couple of minutes from the movie and a couple of seconds with the team behind the film. Not riveting.

The Devil (2:26/HD): This featurette takes a quick look at the mythology behind the Devil.

The Night Chronicles (2:15/HD): We were hoping that this would contain a preview of the other Night Chronicles films but no such luck, this featurette contains some time with M Night Shyamalan talking about the movie and a few seconds on The Night Chronicles themselves.

OVERALL
Devil is a scary film that's sure to hold your interest.

Review By: Luke Van Leuveren

THE MOVIE	8/10
THE VIDEO	7/10
THE AUDIO	8/10
THE EXTRAS	3/10
OVERALL	7/10