The Mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green) takes it upon himself to fix a broken elevator - or will he? - in Devil, based on a story by twist-master M. Night Shyamalan. Provided to China Daily

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) investigates the death that sets the sin-and-penance ball rolling in Devil. Provided to China Daily

Five distrustful strangers trapped in an elevator will soon find out one of them is up to serious no good in Devil. Provided to China Daily

Ramirez, Detective Bowden and Lustig (from left, Jacob Vargas, Chris Messina and Matt Craven) try to calm anxious elevator passengers trapped with the lord of the dark in Devil. Provided to China Daily

The ultimate monster seems to be pushing his way to the head of the cinematic line, reports Elizabeth Kerr.

Cinema and television screens - for that matter all manner of media including comics, and video games - seem to have been overrun of late by deadly creatures that would, quite literally, eat us given the chance. In varying cycles in the last five years or so, we've had: zombies, on screen in 28 Days Later, endless Night of the Living Dead spin-offs, and on television in the UK miniseries Dead Set, and the upcoming The Walking Dead on the station that gave us Mad Men (!); werewolves, in the remake of The Wolfman, the cult Canadian flick Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers, and countless werewolves-as-sidekicks or sworn enemies like Underworld; and of course vampires, too numerous to mention, though it's notable that this may be the most lucrative bunch, as The Hollywood Reporter recently stated vampires have generated $7 billion in revenue since the release of Twilight.

But there's one little beastie that has slipped by under the radar and just may be on the verge of his own renaissance: The Devil. Yes, the ultimate super- or supra-natural monster has been lingering on the periphery of moviedom for quite some time, but a burst of recent activity seems to suggest he's had enough of sitting on the sidelines.

Really, think about it. There's a fundamental symbolism to the Devil - and more loosely his (her?) demon cohorts that makes him the perfect metaphor for whatever ails us. Unlike the blood-fixated vampire or the lemming-like zombie, the Devil has no easily definable "disease" the way vampires can be used to represent, say, AIDS or teen/pre-marital sex anxieties, zombies for mindless consumerism or werewolves for our inert capacity for violence. The Devil is an all purpose bad guy that works for whatever happens to be front page news on any given day or prevailing public mood.

The Devil's never really left us. Devil movies go back decades, and demon movies are a tried and true tradition in Hong Kong - though it's a markedly different type of demon. The devil/demon Hollywood prefers to insinuate himself (let's just say him for the sake of argument) into our lives and wreak havoc from within. The Devil likes to shake our most basic beliefs and corrupt our most revered institutions. Going back only as far as the 1960s brings to mind the benchmark for devil movies, Rosemary's Baby. That film set a new standard for evil-doing, and perpetrated it on hip, young, post-war narcissists in cool Manhattan apartments.

Of course, that was followed by The Exorcist, arguably the ultimate in demonic horror, and The Omen, two films that shone a spotlight on shaky family structures among other issues. More recently - and in a shorter span of time - we've seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Paranormal Activity (demons, not ghosts), The Last Exorcism, an entire season of television's Supernatural (the hero as Lucifer), and the just-released Devil, covering everything from the dwindling value of faith to concept of post-modern morality and responsibility. Is the Devil finally getting his due?

Director M. Night Shyamalan is kind of back, this time as producer of one of his own stories, with a film that blends the demonic pop culture trend with that classic of high-concept storytelling, the Bunch Of Strangers In Danger Locked In A Small Space motif (Cube, Speed, Assault on Precinct 13). An office tower express elevator is the locus for the action and begins when a claustrophobic security guard (Bokeem Woodbine, Strapped), a former Marine (Logan Marshall-Green), a smarmy salesman (Geoffrey Arend, (500) Days of Summer), a young woman (Bojana Novakovic) and an old woman (veteran character actress Jenny O'Hara) pile into elevator 6 and promptly get stuck. The security guards watching from the control room, Lustig (veteran character actor Matt Craven) and Ramirez (Jacob Vargas), soon come to the realization that something's not right in that lift, and call the cops. The first to respond is the emotionally wounded Bowden (Chris Messina, Julie & Julia), who happens to be around the corner investigating a suicide that came from the same building. Coincidence? It's Shyamalan. There are no coincidences.

As easy as it was to infer meaning from other great devil movies - The Exorcist came on the heels of '70s female empowerment and growing secularism, recent films have been produced in an increasingly conservative America - there is little to read in Devil. Aside from perhaps the elevator's location in an office tower, the ultimate symbol of corporate power, like most Shyamalan work there's a strong thread of sin and penance in the story. If you can't figure out how the characters connect, you've clearly never seen a film in your life.

Writer Brian Nelson has dealt with high-concept genre material before; he did a nice job with the adolescent revenge thriller Hard Candy and adapted the vampire comic 30 Days of Night to middling effect. But he drops the ball this time. For every bit of tension director John Erick Dowdle manages to ratchet up in the lift - and the old-school flickering lights do work - Nelson kills with the less interesting outside shenanigans. The key to any tight space film like Devil is to keep the action firmly rooted in the tight space. The frayed nerves in the elevator seem diffused every time the focus shifts to endless random characters that have little impact on the story. It doesn't help that the characters are paper-thin and there's little in the way of insightful or clever dialogue. With more time and effort each could have been far more vivid than the archetypes they are.

As one of a clutch of devil movies to come down the pipe of late, Devil had all the potential to be the one to really energize the genre. By the time the big reveal happens it's too little too late and anything the man downstairs had to say about the human condition or the "people" in the elevator is lost to cliche and/or cheap scares. It's not inept filmmaking; it's just lazy. And the Devil would most certainly not approve.

Devil opened in Hong Kong Thursday.

(HK Edition 09/25/2010 page4)