Laura Caro in Here Comes the Devil (Magnet Releasing)

Aside from a curt synopsis, I had no idea what to expect from this film. I knew that it was a hybrid of a horror film and a psychological thriller centered around a family who takes the son and daughter on a day trip, only to lose them after they go off on a hike. The children don’t return that evening and inexplicably appear the next day. As the family attempts to resume their everyday life, the children seem possessed by a sinister force. Chaos, sexual taboo, and murder ensue. In my ignorance I leapt to several conclusions: it seemed like a debut feature, the director seemed to be very young, etc.

After some post-screening research, I now know that Here Comes the Devil is actually Madrid-born Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s ninth film. He wrote all nine, produced two of them, and made his first feature length movie when he was just 19 years old. Bogliano also holds four Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre awards, an honor born out of a film festival specializing in fantasy and bizarre genre films. I was right about the director’s age—he is only 33, but I was very wrong about his experience.

That being said, I now feel the need to retroactively scrutinize the film due to my recent knowledge of Bogliano’s achievements. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie, but there were a lot of problems.

1) Totally unnecessary, gratuitous sex scenes.

I am by no means squeamish. If there is a reason to open a movie with two, barely legal girls scissoring violently on a bed to heavy metal music, by all means, go for it. If it is integral to the plot to show a married couple getting hot ‘n’ heavy in their car, or in their shower, or on their bed, please! Don’t hold back! (These are actual examples from the film.) If, however, it has nothing to do with the story and occurs at such high frequency and long length, it just ends up looking cheap. There are more compelling ways to grab an audience.

2)  Expositional dialogue and cliché, fringe characters whose only purpose is to deliver it.

There were more than a few instances when the origin of evil in the hills (the place where the children were possessed) is explained in the most clichéd, literal ways. Naturally there is a strange old man who owns a gas station and says cryptic things, a suspicious and hardened sheriff who delivers acerbic one-liners, and a bizarre hermit who creeps about the day the children disappear. These archetypes become caricatures very quickly. It was almost as if Bogliano flipped through a paper doll book and plucked out the clothing for “weird-yet-wise old man,” “hard-boiled cop,” and “superstitious/creepy village idiot.”

3)     Telemundo-style camera work.

I’m not sure if this was meant to be ironic or humorous, but in the very beginning there is an onslaught of cheesy extreme close-ups. You know, the close-ups that occur when a character is shocked, frightened, or angry. The camera speeds toward the face, and the actor widens her eyes or furrows his brow. Maybe this was a breath of comic relief before the shit hit the fan, but I really couldn’t tell.

Now I don’t want to be so critical—there were aspects I liked. It was engaging immediately, and it was downright terrifying in many scenes. There was a definite sense of stress I felt when the mother of the family, Sol (played by Laura Caro), realized what was happening to her children but her husband wouldn’t listen to her. Caro was good at provoking empathy when she wasn’t overacting. I also found myself surprised at the ending, which is always a pleasant thing within the horror genre, which can be so formulaic.

I wouldn’t call Here Comes The Devil a good film, but I had a lot of fun watching it. The credits rolled on a red screen to the blaring of black metal, and as I exited the screening room, I had a little sinister smirk on my face.