Matt Betinelli-Olpin | Through the Shattered Lens

So, it’s January, and you know what that means — “found footage” horror is back.

Seriously, just when you think this cinematic trend has breathed its last gasp, it’s back — usually during the post-holiday period, when studios are eager to dump off material that they think is going to play to a limited (at best) audience. And then something funny happens — one of these “hand-held horrors, ” sometimes even a pretty lousy one at that, ends up ruling the roost at the box office for a week or two (The Devil Inside, anyone?), easily recouping its meager production costs, and the Hollywood suits decide to green-light a few more similar productions figuring that, hey, there’s life in this old horse yet.

And so there seems to be. But you do have to wonder — again! — if this persistent sub-genre has finally run its course, now that we’ve had found-footage zombie flicks, found-footage monster flicks, found-footage exorcism flicks, found-footage ghost flicks, and, in the case of the movie we’re here to discuss today, Devil’s Due, found footage Antichrist flicks.

Arriving as this movie did hot on the heels of Paranormal Activity : The Marked Ones, my initial thought was that this co-directed effort from Matt Betinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who also collaborated on a less-than-stellar segment in the less-than-stellar horror anthology V/H/S) looked like another spin-off from the PA franchise, by way of Polanski’s classic Rosemary’s Baby, and while that’s generally not too far off the mark, it also doesn’t mean this isn’t actually a pretty good film. In point of fact, it is — even if it doesn’t sound like it could, or perhaps even should, be.

Lisa Marie’s nice little write-up on these digital “pages” a week or so back got me sufficiently intrigued to go out and see this thing, and I have to say I’m glad that I did, for while its premise — not to mention its stylistic trappings — are miles away from being original, it was at the very least a deftly-handled, well-constructed, reasonably-well-acted affair that, while utterly predictable, still offered enough of a unique take on its subject matter to seem modestly refreshing and “new.”

Even though it’s not. But hey, cinema relies on at least temporary suspension of disbelief, right?

The set-up is as basic as they come (and as you’d probably expect) : mysterious orphan girl Samantha (Allison Miller) grows up and marries semi-annoying yuppie scumbag Zach (Zach Gilford), they honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, a night of debauchery and excess in a mysterious underground club ends with, we find out later, her getting pregnant, and said pregnancy is beset by weird health complications, mysterious super-powers being bestowed upon the expectant mother, strangers watching their house (one of whom bears an uncanny resemblance to the cab driver who escorted them to their night-to-remember-that-they-don’t-remember in the DR), and whaddya know? A few dead deer feasts, mysterious home invasions, and psychic attacks on priests later, Samantha’s all set to give birth to Satan’s own flesh n’ blood.

On a purely personal level, I have to confess that Antichrist stories usually fall pretty flat with me since one usually needs to believe in Christ first in order to believe in his evil counterpart — since I don’t, then, I’m kind of hobbled when it comes to buying into the whole central premise here, but what the heck? Devil’s Due is paced so as not to give even viewers like myself too much time to dwell on the details, and hey, at least their “let’s record every moment of our lives for posterity” is a better pretext for all the “home movie” footage we’re getting here than some of the limp set-ups we’ve been served by other entries in this admittedly over-crowded field.

In the “minus” column, our intrepid young (I’m assuming, at any rate) directors do come a bit too close to over-playing their hand at the end — they needn’t go nearly as OTT in the effects department as they do in order to drive home their climax — but on the whole, and against all odds, their finished product by and large actually works. And on a cold January afternoon, that’s enough for me.

Devil’s Due may not be a new horror classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it does go some way towards showing that a “hand-held horror” movie can still be effective — provided, of course, that it’s in the right hands.

Devil’s Due is a lot better than you may think.

Yes, it’s tempting to judge Devil’s Due without giving it fair a chance. January is traditionally the time of year when the studios dump all of their most hopeless films into theaters, hoping to make a quick buck while more discriminating audiences are distracted by the Oscar nominees. Found footage horror movies usually suck. The commercials make Devil’s Due look like little more than just the latest film to rip-off Paranormal Activity and The Last Exorcism. On top of all that, Devil’s Due wasn’t screened for critics and we know that’s usually a bad sign.

So yes, there’s a lot of reasons to be skeptical about Devil’s Due but I’m here to tell you to put your skeptism aside. Devil’s Due is a surpisingly intelligent horror film, one that totally defied my expectations.

If you’ve seen any of the commercials then you already know the basic plot. Zach (Zach Gilford) and Sam (Allison Miller) are newlyweds. While on their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, they have both a frightening encounter with a fortune teller (who repeatedly tells Sam that “They’ve been waiting for you,”) and a seemingly more pleasant encounter with a friendly taxi driver who takes them to an underground nightclub. Though Sam and Zach wake up the next morning with no memory of when they left the club, we know (via Zach’s still-running camera) that a ritual was performed while Sam was passed out drunk.

Returning home to New Orleans, Sam is shocked to discover that, despite being on the pill, she is now pregnant. Zach and his family are so excited about the idea of Zach becoming a father that nobody seems to notice that Sam is far less enthusiastic. Not only does this mean that she might have to put her education and career on hold, but she also soon starts waking up with bruises on her stomach and having nosebleeds. She flies into unexplained rages, at one point smashing the windows of a van that pulled out in front of her. Despite being a vegetarian, Sam starts to crave raw meat. While everyone else just assumes that she’s having a difficult pregnancy, Sam becomes convinced that something is wrong with the baby.

Meanwhile, Zach grows increasingly paranoid about the strange men who always seem to be following Sam and him around. When he spots the cab driver sitting in church, watching as Zach’s neice takes communion for the first time, Zach realizes what the rest of us already know.

Devil’s Due won’t necessarily win any points for originality but it’s still an effectively creepy and genuinely frightening horror film. By letting us know, early on, that Sam is carrying the antichrist, the filmmakers are allowed to spend their time developing atmosphere and character (as opposed to building up to a twist that the audience would have seen coming from a mile away). Zach Gilford and Allison Miller are both very likable and have a lot of chemistry and, as a result, you care about their characters and you continue to hope for the best even when it becomes obvious that they’re destined to experience the worst.

(One need only look at the bland and forgettable lead characters in January’s other found footage film — Paranormal Activty: The Marked Ones — to understand just how important Gilford and Miller are to making Devil’s Due into an effective and memorable film.)

My most common complaint about found footage horror films is that they require you to believe that someone would actually continue to artfully film everything around him even while literally running for his life. Director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet manage to avoid that problem by using a variety of different methods to create the illusion of “found footage.” While a good deal of the film is presented as having been filmed by Zach, the directors also make good use of store security footage (one of the film’s best scenes features Sam eating raw meat in a supermarket while a small child looks on in shock and the store’s employees fail to notice) and several stationary cameras that, about halfway through the film, are secretly installed in Zach and Sam’s house. The use of different cameras not only keeps the film from getting monotonous but it also helps the film to avoid the nausea-inducing shaky cam effect that almost made it impossible for me to watch The Marked Ones.

Finally, Devil’s Due works because it manages to get at the root of a very real and primal fear. Though it’s not something that we’re encouraged to admit, just the very idea of pregnancy is a very scary thing for a lot of women (this reviewer included). Beyond the physical changes, there’s the knowledge that, once you’ve given birth, nothing will ever be the same. There’s a great moment in Devil’s Due in which Sam and Zach argue about whether or not Sam should continue to pursue her career while she’s pregnant. This is followed, a bit later, by a scene where it’s casually mentioned that Sam’s office has now been transformed into a nursery. These are very human moments and ones that are full of very real emotions that any woman will be able to relate to. It’s moments like these that elevante Devil’s Due and make it into a surprisingly effective and intelligent horror film.

Give Devil’s Due a chance.