Devil or The Night Chronicles : Devil is a 2010 US supernatural thriller film based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan, written by Brian Nelson, and directed by John Erick Dowdle. Released in threaters in mid-September of this year, I watched this movie last night. The film is about 5 people who are trapped inside an elevator and who realize that the Devil is one among them.

The film starts with what seems like a random suicide of a worker who jumped off a building in Philadelphia. Detective Bowden is called onto the scene to investigate. At the same building, an elevator gets stuck with 5 people, who don’t know each other, in it. The five strangers are Ben (Bokeem Woodbine), a temp security guard with a violent past; an elderly woman (Jenny O’Hara) who is a kleptomaniac; Vince (Geoffrey Arend), a mattress salesman who moonlights as a con artist; Tony (Logan Marshall-Green), a former mechanic who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the War in Afghanistan who is now seeking employment within the building; and Sarah (Bojana Novakovic), a blackmailing gold-digger meeting with her lawyer in the building.

Then the strange scary things happen – the lights keep going out, Sarah is attacked & wounded in the dark. Everyone else thinks that Vince is the culprit but after the next power outage, Vince is found killed by a shard of glass from a mirror which slices his jugular vein. Detective Bowden & the security staff of the building can communicated with the people in the elevator through a speaker & mic but they can’t hear anything said in the elevator. The office building’s repairman is sent down the elevator shaft to fix it, but plummets to his death. During a power outage, the old woman is found hanged by the neck from an electrical cord.

With just 3 left, Sarah & Ben turn on Tony, thinking him to be the killer. Confrontations & threats follow but after the lights got out, Ben is found dead. Tony and Sarah prepare to fight each other with broken glass, but Bowden seemingly manages to calm them. As Sarah prepares to take out a shard of glass hidden in her back pocket, the lights once again go out and her throat is slashed. Tony is shaken and distraught – it’s obvious now that he isn’t the killer but then who is? The old woman suddenly rises and appears behind Tony. It is now apparent that she is the Devil who has taken a human form. Having dispensed of the others, the Devil tells Tony it’s his turn to die.

Detective Bowden watches through the CCTV as Tony confesses to killing two people in a drunken hit-and-run accident. Tony had been trying to grab another beer while driving and had not seen where he was going. Bowden is stunned – it was his wife & son who were killed in the accident. Tony had left a car wash coupon which ‘I’m Sorry’ written on it, which Bowden had found and kept as a reminder of the hurt & lose. At which point the Devil is forced to spare him (as he confessed his sin and apologized for it) and disappears as the firefighters finish breaking into the elevator. Detective Bowden realizes Tony is the one who killed his wife and son, but expresses his forgiveness en route to the police station following his arrest.

I liked the concept, the Devil always interests me and I’m a fan of anything Shyamalan does. The movie didn’t pan out quite like how I expected but it has it’s moments. Overall it’s a good movie but it could have been better. I’d give it a 7/10.