Here Comes the Devil (2013)

Director – Adrian Garcia Bogliano
Writers – Adrian Garcia Bogliano
Production Company – MPI Media Group, Morbido Films, Salto de Fe Films

Stars – Laura Caro, Francisco Barreiro

IMDB Page

Have you ever watched a movie and you know it’s not a masterpiece, but for some reason you still like it?  I think I would place this movie in that category.  There’s stuff missing that could have made it killer with a capital K, but I still really dug it as far as horror movies go.

Here Comes the Devil has a pretty simple concept.  Two parents are on vacation with their kids, and being kids they want to go explore a mountainous area on their own.  While exploring the kids go missing for 24 hours or so, but are soon reunited with their desperate parents.  When the family returns home things start to change, the kids are different, and the parents aim to find out what’s happening to them.

So that’s the basic story plot, and now the director/writer Adrian Garcia Bogliano gets to fill in the details.  Here Comes the Devil looks great, I wish I had the fancy words to describe his vision but I’m no film student.  Besides the gritty backdrop of Mexico, and luscious colors the city provides, Adrian also has a real style of filming.  Adrian often zooms in on faces at odd angles which I really liked, and he also tends back up quickly after the zoom in.  I liked this quirky little signature of his.  I’ve not seen any of his other movies so I’m not sure if this is new, or what he’s known for.

The soundtrack is absolute perfection and timed perfectly for overall affect.  It’s something that really stood out to me.  It all flows together with the film so wonderfully.  The music sounds, like the movie looks – if that makes any sense to anyone!

This movie is OnDemand currently, don’t read any further if you don’t want to be FULLY Spoiled.  If you’ve already watched it let me know what you think.

SPOILERS

So the details, the beginning of the movie shocked me a bit.  We open with two younger females having sex in a house.  I was reading someone else’s view on this scene and why did Adrian have to include such graphic sex, and one of the commenter's posed the question “would you be so shocked and questioning this scene it if it were a girl and guy having sex?” You know what, I probably wouldn’t have - so I’m taking what that commenter said to heart, it’s not really shocking it’s just not what I’m used to seeing.

The two girls have a conversation that lightly ties into the rest of the movie, sets a tone, they are interrupted by a knock on the door.  One girl goes to answer and she’s met by the most prolific serial killer in Mexico’s history (well you find that out later).  When our killer shows his face, it’s all devil.  He doesn’t look quite human.  This brings up one of my first questions, was he already changed into a devil like being or is he the person that starts our chain of events?  Our killer escapes the house after being injured, he ends up going to a mountainous area and dying there – yes the same place the kids eventually get lost in.

Now we go to a more present time where you meet the parents and kids, who are our main characters.  Sara the daughter gets her first period while the family is exploring.  Her mother, Sol, played by Laura Caro takes her to a gas station to sort everything out.  While Sara is cleaning up they’re spied in the bathroom by a creepy man outside, Lucio.  Sol takes notice of the stare down he’s giving them and scares him away.  Lucio is a local who many people find strange in the town, he’s apparently obsessed with the surrounding mountains and caverns.  At this point Sol doesn’t really know that, she only knows Lucio is paying her and Sara way to much attention.

The kids eventually go off on their own for a little exploration of the mountains, their parents stay behind and get hot and heavy in the car.  Let me say the conversation had between Sol and Felix (dad) is quite graphic!  I was little surprised, but while graphic it comes off pretty standard in the dirty talk department.  So while shocking, I feel it was only shocking because normally sexy talk in movies is so, well, pretty. There’s nothing pretty about Sol and Felix’s dirty talk!  Might I also mention that while Felix is “handling” Sol, we get nice little shots of the cave which happens to be the same shape as Sols…coincidence?  Perhaps, I tend to read into things sometimes.

Hours later the kids haven’t returned. Felix makes a short run to where the kids went but he doesn’t find them, though he does pass a red truck.  Sol and Felix contact the police and wait in a nearby hotel for news.  They get into your normal this is your fault quibbles and eventually rest until morning - except for an unexplainable earthquake felt by Felix in the middle of the night.

Thankfully the kids are returned to them in the morning, the family is ecstatic and return home.  The kids start behaving differently though, and the parents have them visit doctors and psychologists.  During some of these visits things keep piling up, and everything is pointing to something very traumatic having happened to the kids – but they’re not talking really.  At home strange things are also starting to happen, you get some strange sounds and flickering lights.  Things that make the parents pause, but no leap straight to a supernatural explanation of why the kids are behaving oddly.

During a psychologist visit the kids are asked to draw pictures of what they remember, and they both draw very similar things – except for one small item that sparks a memory for Felix – a truck.  Here’s where things get really shocking.  Felix remembers a truck he saw when he went to search for his kids, so the whole family goes to stalk this vehicle down, since they believe this person might have information on what happened to the children.

One of the scariest scenes to me is when they finally find the vehicle and its owner. It’s Lucio, as soon as Sol sees Lucio she’s disgusted as she remembers how he looked her and Sara up and down in the creepiest of manners – the kids also start flipping out and screaming as they see Lucio, this really hammers it home to the parents that Lucio must have something to do with why their children are so off now.

Revenge time, it’s always nice to see mild mannered parents circumvent the law and take things into their own hands.  It’s what most parents say they’ll do if they ever find out their children were harmed in some way, the thing is you should really make sure you’re right.   This is one twisted little scene.  During all of this the kids are left with a sitter, who they promptly scar for life.

The kids keep up the odd behavior so momma bear decides she needs to follow them to school, except that’s not where they’re going.  The kids have been skipping school and traveling back to the cave where they were lost.  Mom see’s this but she doesn’t tell dad, this is a slight flaw to me but the the filmmaker does hint that the mother’s leaning towards a supernatural explanation over a straightforward one like the dad.

Now to the goods, the part that had me super excited for this movie.  Mom visits the cave on her own one day, and she finds the bodies of her two children inside, dead.  I mean dead as in they died the day they went missing. The children in her home are not hers.  *Chills*, totally dig on this little twist.

Sol returns back home and decides to take care of the children, by take care I mean drug and gas them.  I love how Sol didn’t come home to confront, she simply took things into her own hands – still shocking though.

Sol calls Felix to meet her at the cave. He’s completely unaware of what his wife’s done.  She shows him to where his children’s bodies are and well things don’t go well for Sol.  Felix kills his wife thinking she’s murdered the children, and she did, but certainly not the real ones dead in the cave.  Felix then kills himself.

Shortly after, Felix and Sol emerge from the cave, and drive off = Brilliant!  The cycle continues.  Something cute that I caught about this scene – in the beginning of the movie Felix is teaching his son how to drive and his son keeps having issues with learning.  When Felix drives off with Sol, after they emerge from the cave, he’s driving like his son.  So does this mean Felix is now some sort of devil incarnation of the son?  Just something I spied, did anyone else catch this?

So what was this movie missing?  There’s not any background given on that serial killer from the first scene.  I was confused as to whether he had already “changed” via the cave, or if he was perhaps still human - and then died in the cave, transferring to the children?  I’d love that cleared up, though it doesn’t totally kill it for me.

There's also no information on how this infestation of the person presents itself, what is the overall need and want of the “person” that comes back?  We don’t really get a lot of that, we hear about the children’s odd behavior but we don’t really know why they’re doing the things they’re doing?  Why did the kids float?  Was this purely “the devil” or was it pieces of the person who died before?  Lots of questions!

End Spoilers

Overall this is one of those movies that I really liked because of how fresh it felt, but I do see lots of room for improvement.  I’d love to give it a second look, but I have to fit in my horror movie watching between taking care of two kids….who can’t watch horror movies.

I’d love to hear others thoughts and takes on this movie, have you seen it?  What did you think?