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Trapped in an Elevator With M. Night Shyamalan

By TK | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (39)

Devil-Poster.jpg

OK, I think we all can agree that M. Night Shyamalan’s name is kind of mud right now. So much so that the film Devil was once being called M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil, and now it’s simply the one word. From all reports… and I do mean all reports, he colossally fucked up The Last Airbender, and despite its solid box office earnings, it’s been a critical disaster of epic proportions. Seriously, The Last Airbender is getting a Gigli-like reception. That bad.

However, Shyamalan didn’t direct Devil, he simply wrote the story. The screenplay was done by Bryan Nelson (Hard Candy), which is promising. It’s co-directed by John Erick Dowdle (the unimpressive [Rec] remake, Quarantine) and his brother Drew (this is his first picture). And I have to give the trailer a few points. It’s got a nice little “normal day until shit goes haywire” vibe to it. It’s spooky but not excessively effects-laden. It’s got a weird cast — Chris Messina (Greenberg), Bokeem Woodbine (The Big Hit) and Geoffrey Arend (the dorky hardware store guy in Garden State and the man Christina Hendricks comes home to) are the only even slightly recognizable names. It’s got a puny $10 million budget. And frankly, the premise is kind of neat:

A group of people trapped in a elevator realize that the devil is among them.

Weird. Simple. I like it. Watch the trailer:

My suspicion is that the pain of The Last Airbender is still too raw for most of you, but for me? I’m curious.

You can also watch a high-res version over at Apple.

(source: Ropes Of Silicon)









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Comments

I remember thinking good things when I heard the premise last year... and this trailer is intriguing to say the least.

Geoffrey Arend always seems to be distracting when he is on screen. That bodes well for Broken Lizard and Zach Braff movies but I don't know how I feel about it here...

Posted by: Colin at July 14, 2010 10:42 AM

I had not heard about this at all. I'm intrigued.

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at July 14, 2010 10:48 AM

It does look pretty neat. Though, being an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the twist at the end is likely that they're all devils, from different belief systems, and none of them knew they were fucking with other devils. Or, the elevator is a really the elevator to Hell. Or, Bokeem Woodbine is staring blankly into a snowglobe.

Actually, the second one would be kind of cool.

Posted by: RobP at July 14, 2010 10:48 AM

It doesn't look bad, but I'd love to see one of these movies where you can't immediately pick out the person who's going to behave like a total alpha jackass, crack, and get everyone else killed due to their total batshit dumbassery.

Posted by: twig at July 14, 2010 11:02 AM

I call the older lady as the devil. You heard it here first.

Posted by: mswas at July 14, 2010 11:11 AM

The Devil is my penis?

Don't forget this is from the guy who brought us The Happening. Something dumb is going to happen. Maybe the elevator itself is the devil, and it start coming alive and shit because those 5 people are the prophets who will team up with redneck Mary & Joe from Legion. Maybe M. Night continues his assault on the colored people (which is weird consider he's ASIAN) and it is Bokeem who's the devil.

Maybe our abuse of various transition metals will come back to haunt us and stainless steel is gonna kill us all!

p.s. Old Scratch is supposed to be a cool motherfucker like Peter Stormare, or Neil Gaiman's Lucifer Morningstar based on David Bowie's looks and the Milton interpretation.

Posted by: D-Day at July 14, 2010 11:22 AM

Old Scratch is supposed to be a cool motherfucker like Peter Stormare,

One of the best performances, out of nowhere in a movie like that.

Posted by: twig at July 14, 2010 11:27 AM

Ooh I'm interested. Looks creepy. Of course I'm still traumatised by the Quantum Leap devil episode, so you may not want to trust my judgement.

Posted by: Carrie at July 14, 2010 11:35 AM

I notice they've included as many cleavage shots as humanly possible in a 2.5 minute trailer. I'm intrigued.

Posted by: logar at July 14, 2010 11:38 AM

I'd Netflix it. I second the little old lady, or it may possibly be the girl having the fit of histrionics. You know, just to throw us off the trail.

Word on the Peter Stormare love. Such a small role, but filled with so much awesome.

Posted by: Kaleena at July 14, 2010 11:39 AM

Bleah.
The woman who says do I look like such a threat and is doing most of the screaming is obviously the devil.
One of those dumb spoilers in trailers like in The Usual Suspects poster. "The Truth is always in the last place you look".

Posted by: supafly at July 14, 2010 11:44 AM

Like AvB, I, too, am intrigued. Of course, it might ultimately be a little too scary for yours truly. Also, a bit too claustrophobic. But ultimately, I'm interested to hear more about it.

Posted by: tamatha at July 14, 2010 11:49 AM

Third call on the old lady.

That's just too easy.

Posted by: FabMax at July 14, 2010 1:03 PM

Shyamalan makes his requisite cameo as, twist ending!, the devil.

Posted by: Neo at July 14, 2010 1:51 PM

I know better than to be seduced by a well-edited trailer...

Esp. for an MNightS movie... that dude has a more up and down rep than Lindsay Lohan (though she's mostly down now).

Posted by: Slash at July 14, 2010 1:56 PM

meh. i'd netflix it. unless it was spoiled and turned out to be tarded.

THAT said, the whole different devils from different religions would be a nice touch.

and i love woodbine.

Posted by: gp at July 14, 2010 2:57 PM

Looks fun. Though it should be called "Hellevator".

Posted by: Adam at July 14, 2010 2:57 PM

The elevator is the devil! Of course!

Maybe none of the characters are the devil, and it's invisible, like a gremlin.* And then Bokeem Woodbine** sees it (you saw the shot near the end) and goes crazy, doing the devil's work?


* Twilight Zone gremlins, not the car or the Spielberg movie.

** I just really like typing his name. Bokeem Woodbine. It's fun. Try it!

Posted by: RobP at July 14, 2010 2:58 PM

I spy Mr. Christina Hendricks.

Posted by: JayJay at July 14, 2010 3:10 PM

No no, the twist will be water. He makes water the weakness in two if his films and it's where the bad stuff comes from in lady in the water. (or so I'm told, didn't actually see it) >.> HE HATES WATER!!

Posted by: Bonnye at July 14, 2010 3:17 PM

I like all of the cast and this looks intriguing. I feel like it's one of those films where if you like it you'll be second guessing every line and action any character puts out there to try and guess who is who etc.

It does, how ever remind me of a book I read years ago the name of which has escaped me, which was about a tower block in London being slowly dragged into a hell dimension?

I wish I could remember the name because it was a bleak, intense book and had some similar themes to this; the people inside the building had been having their christmas parties and the few survivors of the initial 'impact' and rescuers who made it into the building all ended up suspecting one another of being agents of the unseen 'evil' in the building.

Posted by: Nadine at July 14, 2010 3:42 PM

I just cannot suspend my disbelief when the movie is supposed to be set in NYC, but in the background I see the resteraunt where I go for lunch in Toronto. BOO!

Posted by: Saiyed at July 14, 2010 4:12 PM

YES...PLEASE!

Posted by: DeistBrawler at July 14, 2010 4:43 PM

Well.. we know its not the black guy already, since hes the one yelling 'who are you' in the last frames of the trailer.

I'm going with the nerdy guy. Just for fun.

Posted by: strtwise at July 14, 2010 5:24 PM

Not all M. Night Shyamalan films have twists. The fact that people think there's going to be a twist is what wrecks the film for some. A plot development is not a twist. The premise explained five minutes into a film is not a twist. For example, killer plants is not a twist in The Happening. It's the plot. If it were a twist, the plants being killer would not be revealed in the first 10 minutes of the film. The same kind of thing can be said for Signs and Unbreakable. Not twists: plots. Is the ending of Juno a twist because you don't know if she will or won't give up the baby in the final scenes? I don't think so.

There is no twist in this film. That's made clear by the plot being 5 people realize the devil is among them. What could be the twist? Jesus is in the elevator too? Ridiculous. No twist. Just plot. Deal with it.

Posted by: Robert at July 14, 2010 5:51 PM

Kinda disappointing, in that when I first heard about this I assumed it'd be a Twelve Angry Men-style limited-to-one-small-room-and-one-small-cast movie, and now it turns out to be about half the fire department trying to get them out. All the claustrophobia this should have will be lost.

On the other hand, if you pause this at 2.21, there is something VERY creepy behind the black dude with the match.

Posted by: scarecrowprophet at July 14, 2010 6:36 PM

But this isn't really "an M Night movie." He didn't direct or write the screenplay but "wrote the story." What does that even mean?

Posted by: stryker1121 at July 14, 2010 7:46 PM

Geoffrey Arend will always be the "schnozberries taste like schnozberries" guy from Super Troopers to me.

Posted by: badkittyuno at July 14, 2010 8:25 PM

But this isn't really "an M Night movie." He didn't direct or write the screenplay but "wrote the story." What does that even mean?

Shammymelon wrote a story, which Bryan Nelson turned into a screenplay. We just might be OK.

Posted by: Uriah Creep at July 14, 2010 10:34 PM

Robert I was starting to agree with you then but um...Unbreakable had a pretty big and obvious twist; The Sam Jackson was the villain.

This wasn't explained ten minutes into the film and while it was fairly easy to guess at, it WAS revealed as a twist. This is not detrimental to the film at all but it damages your otherwise very strong argument.

Posted by: Nadine at July 15, 2010 5:11 AM

Nadine, please try to remember the name of that book! It sounds like something I'd like.

Thanks!

Posted by: ariadne at July 15, 2010 9:37 PM

I agree this looks interesting. I am glad nobody is preggo though, that would just be too obvious. Or maybe the baby is in the briefcase!

Great, I will now have nightmares of devil babies flinging people out of elevators.

Posted by: DeckOfficer!! at July 15, 2010 11:54 PM

Of course the devil is the guy wearing the red tie. I mean, c'mon, RED TIE. Hello? RED. TIE.

Posted by: Ryan at July 16, 2010 12:32 AM

Last time i checked this movie is neither directed or written by M. Night. Shamallalyla. So whatever "from the mind of M. Night Shamalalally" means, chances are the movie doesn't suck. Doesn't suck as hard as any "true" Shamalailalala movie.

Posted by: Arthur Dent at July 16, 2010 8:30 PM

Nadine, d'oh! It's been so long (too long) since I've watched Unbreakable that I forgot about that. That can be described as a twist. When I watched it, I knew there had to be a supervillain if there was a superhero, but yes, the identity of said villain is a twist.

M. Night Shyamalan, fucking my arguments about modern genre-ish films up since 1999.

Posted by: Robert at July 17, 2010 2:24 PM

I've long been of the opinion that Shyamalan's still capable of making good films so long as someone's keeping his goddamn ego in check. Having someone else direct? Seems a good way of doing that. So yeah, I'm legit intrigued.

Posted by: Kalexal at July 17, 2010 5:03 PM

I Just hope this doesnt take place in the elevator the entire movie. Then again its M.night shymalan creation so expect anything.

Posted by: Sergio at July 19, 2010 6:28 PM

Ya im Going with The guy in the suit all the other people are too predictable. Of Course the writers may be wanting us to think its the suit guy, just like the old lady, shady hooded guy, and the "something bit me" chick. GAH who knows? But if you look at the creature its got no shirt on so we have to assume its one of the guys. Its sneaking up on Bokeem Woodbine so ya I doubt its him. Who knows.

Posted by: Vindicut at July 21, 2010 12:37 PM

Of course the devil is the guy wearing the red tie. I mean, c'mon, RED TIE. Hello? RED. TIE.

thats a very good guess i was thinkin that too me and my friend were talkin about that in every movie your bound to find some kind of clue that you missed or notice that leads you to find out the mystery but sometimes there is a twist that was not actually the obvious

Posted by: qwerky at September 17, 2010 1:16 PM