ALONG CAME THE DEVIL – Review

Review by Mathew Lowery

Movies about the devil and demonic possession are certainly nothing new. Ever since classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, there have been countless movies made dealing with demons, exorcisms, or the paranormal in general. Some more recent favorites include Insidious, Sinister, and The Conjuring. But then, there are movies like Jason DeVan’s Along Came The Devil, which tries to go toe-to-toe with many other demon possession movies that have come before. Unfortunately, not only does this film take elements from other and much better movies, but it doesn’t offer anything new or use those old ideas in a unique way.

The plot is pretty straightforward, but it can also be somewhat confusing, and I’ll explain why. The movie follows a teen girl named Ashley, played by Sydney Sweeney Nude, whose mother disappeared when she was young and was abused by her father. Several years later, she’s living with her Aunt Tanya, played by Jessica Barth, who was actually an old friend of Ashley’s mother. They live in the small town Ashley grew up in, where she reconnects with her old friend Hannah, played by Madison Lintz, and a boy who had a crush on her when they were kids named Shane, played by Austin Filson. As time goes on, however, Ashley starts hearing strange noises and seeing weird ghostly images, making her question her own sanity. Eventually, she ends up getting possessed, and it’s up to Reverend Michael, played by character-actor Bruce Davison, and his young new pastor John, played by Matt Dallas, to save her.

If any of what I just described sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it’s nearly beat-for-beat the exact same plot as The Exorcist. The difference being that while The Exorcist dealt with themes of doubting one’s faith, how a mother will go to any extremes for their child, and feeling guilty over a loved one, this film has none of that. Instead, it feels like the filmmakers added the basic ingredients of a standard demon possession film, but they failed to realize what made other similar movies so compelling. In fact, the actual exorcism isn’t until the last third of the movie, and even then, it feels rushed, almost like an afterthought. I mentioned before how the plot can be hard to follow, and that’s because there are scenes that are explained to us but we’ve never shown. For instance, there’s a scene where Hannah and Shane are walking out of school talking about something Ashley did at school. Hannah confronts her about it, saying, “What happened in there?” We never find out what exactly happened, we’re never shown what happened, and it’s never brought up again. Same goes for the father abuse in the beginning. We are shown the abuse Ashley and her sister went through, but we never learn why this happened or what made the father act like this.

To be fair, there are at least a few positives I can say about the film, though not much. While the script is poor and the actors aren’t given much to work with, they do a serviceable enough job. Sydney Sweeney does a good job showing some emotions, and she definitely goes all out in the possession scenes. Jessica Barth, while not very compelling, does well here and has some good scenes with Sweeney. And it is great to see such a talented character-actor like Bruce Davison show up, even if he’s playing a lesser version of Max von Sydow’s Father Merrin. There are also some decent make-up effects when Ashley is possessed, and some of the shots are fairly well composed.

Sadly, that’s where the positives I have for this end. Overall, Along Came The Devil feels like a very watered-down and less interesting version of The Exorcist that tries and fails to recapture what made other movies of its kind work.

2 out of 5 stars

Gravitas Ventures will release the supernatural horror film ALONG CAME THE DEVIL in theaters, On Demand and Digital HD on August 10, 2018.