Devil: Critic Reviews

A pocket-size supernatural thriller that plays a bit like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians retold by an unstable Sunday School teacher.

Circling wildly within the film's main set -- a stalled elevator car -- or hurtling up and down an empty shaft, Mr. Fujimoto's camera is as giddy as a tween at a Justin Bieber concert.

The great cinematographer Tak Fujimoto has the time of his life on this low-budget horror feature, playing with dolly shots, abrupt zooms, and negative space inside the widescreen frame, and the fun is infectious.

Devil is guaranteed to keep you on tenterhooks from beginning to end -- and without much gore.

Devil is nothing very special or original, but it gets the job done briskly and economically.

The performances don't give us much. Everything's entirely too calm for entirely too long.

Moves over the line from kind of creepy to kind of stupid. It never recovers, and the last act is sadly unsatisfying.

At best a cheesy, unsatisfying thriller and, at worst, a waste of time.

There's an old belief in TV series production circles that if you're doing a stuck-in-an-elevator episode before Season 4, it's a telltale sign you've run fresh out of ideas.

Its overall slightness as a chiller only stresses that this was material unworthy of a notorious control freak filmmaker's undivided attention.

M. Night Shyamalan at his most messianic -- he just takes too long to get to the frights.

The characters are unlikable and annoying but the suspense built up is very real, making "Devil" a thriller worth checking out.

It always makes me apprehensive to see a movie that was not screened for critics in advance. "Devil" looked like it could have been an interesting film, but [it turns out] the lack of faith was justified.

Although it doubtless will find more success in the DVD market, on the big screen Devil makes for bland viewing.

Nonsensical to the point that every element doesn't hold up to the least bit of scrutiny.

This movie's job was to whip up a little fear and/or suspense, but it must have escaped through a crack in the elevator doors.

Un ejercicio de suspenso sobrenatural bastante efectivo, sobre todo en su primera parte, aunque lleno de lugares comunes mas bien irritantes. Y, sobre todo, con la reiterada pretension evangelizadora que inunda el cine de M. Night Shyamalan...

[M]ost of its promise is squandered through inept scripting and a failure to indulge a self-aware enthusiasm for its B-movie concept.

[M]ost of its promise is squandered through inept scripting and a failure to indulge a self-aware enthusiasm for its B-movie concept.

An effective locked-in-the-box thriller.

For a small package, it conjures up some effective ideas and scares, as well as some terrific atmospheric moments.

A small scale but modestly effective broken elevator thriller that is more Agatha Christie than Alfred Hitchcock.