J*A*S*M

If I had to complain about one thing, it would probably be that The Devil's Hour does not have a very distinctive author’s touch, it looks like any other British TV series, otherwise, everything is great. From various more or less familiar mysterious elements, it puts together a picture that in the end looks fresh and unconventional. In this respect, special mention must be made of the final episode, which explains everything beautifully and reveals a well-thought-out concept that I've probably never seen before. It is rather rare in this mystery subgenre that everything fits together so neatly, including various small details, as in The Devil's Hour. For my part, I would also point out the excellent horror sequences (most of all in episode 3) and the extremely creepy kid.

An entertaining satire, only lightly tinged with horror, that sacrifices pure genre pleasure in the second half, which would have required at least a basic believability of the characters' behaviour to keep the concept going, and, as a result, it ironically becomes part of what it’s mocking. That said, the fun more or less doesn't let up, and the great actors pull it off.

After three hours, I decided I wasn't going to invest another five hours on this. It's a competently put together mystery show, but I am not enjoying it at all. I am not enjoying the characters, I am not enjoying the mystery, I am not enjoying how fucking seriously everything is taken, and I don't give a shit what happens next or how it ends. If it turns out to be something brilliant, let me know, but I won't bother further at this point. And yet, when it comes to the premise, I am the target audience. Oh dear.

At first, I saw the promise of a fairly enjoyable wild night thriller (a supernatural villain capable of manipulating other people playing cat and mouse with a vulnerable heroine). Unfortunately, as time goes on, it becomes a) tiresome (in the way the creators forcefully and literally push the ideas they want to convey) and b) ridiculous (by building a mythology around the villain).

Very nicely put together in terms of production, but still unexciting, forgettable and without substance. In other words, typical Netflix of recent times. For me, with the exception of the solid The Autopsy, by David Prior, all of the stories are united by their inability to engage and draw you into the plot until something explicitly genre-worthy starts happening, which in most cases happens near the end, instead of the beginning.

With Marshall's previous film, I wrote that I wondered if he would ever get his act together and make something that would approach the quality of The Descent. Neil, as if he'd heard me, has now indeed made "something like The Descent", only that it's so many levels worse in every aspect that you don't want to believe it. Well, I think this film answers my question from last time: he won’t, he’s fucked.

As a viewer I feel a bit of subjective disillusionment that I didn't learn why the psycho was doing it. But so be it, they don't really know, so it probably wouldn't be appropriate for the filmmakers to make up their own psychological backstory based on actual events. Objectively, however, exposing the systemic flaw that allowed the psycho to do what he did is at least as interesting. It was nice to see Jessica Chastain in a good movie again, and Eddie Redmayne in a role that didn't piss me off, he fits the type for these characters and should stay with them.

In the context of the genre, it's a high standard, a really solid meat grinder. It's just a shame that the filmmakers gave full priority to the action and didn't exploit the claustrophobic bowels of the freighter where the bloody inferno takes place to play up the horror atmosphere as well. I would have been quite possibly thrilled with that.

I deliberately kept the screening of this film for a moment when I would have some peace and quiet, so I could enjoy it undisturbed, alone, at night, with headphones, because, lured by the positive reviews, I anticipated an atmospheric horror feast. But I'm not very happy. The scares are decent in places, but nothing that completely unsettled me. Mostly, it was the script that bothered me. A large part of the film consists of a dozen or so characters wandering around a darkened tower block with completely incomprehensible motivations. When one of them starts crawling through a narrow crack to help his neighbor fetch a fork (?!) from the apartment next door, I thought it might have switched into admitted parody mode, and that is not the only absurd sequence. The final explanation of what was supposedly going on is also done in the laziest way. Besides, it's not just the script I have a problem with, but also the direction, whenever there's something a bit more action-packed going on, it's a cluttered mess. For example, I didn't get anything out of the flashy finale.

A nasty film about nasty people. An intense but by no means enjoyable experience, in fact I can't remember the last time I had such an awful feeling about a film. I certainly don’t want to watch it again, ever. This real-time adventure with "decent people" is just too real, give me my demons, ghosts and werewolves. Anyway, many users will probably recognize themselves in this, heh.