Devil's Due Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: After being lured to a strange party on their honeymoon, a recently married couple find themselves pregnant with a demonic baby.

Review: I had forgotten all about this movie until I saw an advertisement the other day, but I should have kept forgetting it. What a way to take a routine formula and add abso-fucking-lutely nothing to the table. If I asked you to tell me how you think this movie plays out I can guarantee that you will guess 90% of the plot without even trying; it seriously follows the found-footage handbook to the last detail. You want contrivances? You got 'em by the shitloads. You want cliches? They're all yours. You want predictability? You bet your sweet ass. It's like making a shitty stew: add a helping of "Rosemary's Baby," sprinkle in "Paranormal Activity," and finish it off with a dash of "The Omen."

The story starts off with lame, vague mysteries that are supposed to leave you guessing but will just annoy you to all fuck with a lack of originality and unanswered questions. The couple, Sam and Zach, are getting married, but they conveniently bring up that Sam's family died under questionable circumstances and she can't remember her childhood very well. Oh shit...I'm glad she said that to the camera though. When the couple go on their honeymoon, they are idiotically taken to some underground party by a shady taxi driver. Let me ask you this: if you were alone, lost, and in a shitty part of town in a foreign country, would you follow some random taxi driver to a secret party even further from safety?! He promises it's great though! Big fucking shock, everything seems okay until the couple passes out and a cult appears to put a demon, the devil, the antichrist, whatever the fuck, in Sam. This retardation will become even more painful to tolerate by the end, but we'll get to that later...just keep it in mind. Shortly after returning home we get a few more plot devices rolling and then learn Sam is pregnant. I 100% knew this film was written by a woman by Zach's reaction to this pregnancy revelation. For realzies, what young guy wants to hear the horrible news that his wife is already pregnant right after the honeymoon?! And they acknowledge they were trying NOT to get pregnant which only adds to the absurdity of this scene. Yeah, ladies you wish some dude would take that news like he won the lottery. Fuck...even Sam was disappointed! Okay, I need to calm down, but this scene was so fucking unbelievable to me that giving birth to the antichrist is more plausible!

Anyway, you can probably guess that so-called creepy things start to happen. If you watch the trailer for this movie you will see just about all of them by the way. Are you scared of a woman eating uncooked meat? Are you scared of lamaze classes gone awry? Are you scared of an alleged satanic symbol that looks strikingly similar to the euro? If so, then you're in luck, because the "Devil's Due" is the movie for you! At one point, the cult, or whatever they're supposed to be, moves across the street and puts cameras in the couple's house. Speaking of which, how the hell does this family have such an awesome house? Sam has no job and we never learn what the hell Zach does except that he's been taking a lot of time off conveniently. Blah blah blah, Sam starts to act crazier as Zach realizes people are stalking them and it could connect back to that taxi driver. There's something about Zach finally getting around to watching the honeymoon footage and seeing the supernatural impregnation. That's fortunate that watching your honeymoon video wasn't needed in the plot until months after the fact. Then magically the local priest knows everything that's going on but doesn't care to share except through ravings like a lunatic. Zach figures out those neighbors are the ones stalking them and oversees their activities, because they're ready to take the baby...I mean, after all, the title says you have to give the devil his due! Oh yeah, there was some bit about Sam killing some deer and teens earlier that is filler. Whatever, Sam goes apeshit, kills Zach's sister and pretty much destroys the house before stabbing herself with, what appears to be, a magic baby rattle--yeah, umm, I'm not making that up. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but then the cult members collect the baby and disappear, because everyone knows shadowy cults can disappear without a trace. The cops arrest Zach and think everything is his fault, because, well, the mountains of evidence to the contrary don't mean shit. I especially love the part where they say the neighbor's house was empty and no one was living there...uhh, background characters are the ones that told Zach people were living there in the first place so that's validation to his story you fucks! Plus, the symbols, the wrecked house like it was hit by an earthquake, the hidden cameras, the dead teens, the eyewitnesses, and I'm sure a shitload of physical evidence. Oh yeah, totally an open and shut case against Zach. The movie ends with the taxi driver now in Paris picking up another couple. Remember how I said keep that shit in mind with the taxi driver? Well the ending implies that this cult conveniently plants these people to collect these demonic babies. Talk about one giant fucking contrivance! Factor in that the mother's are chosen probably because they were like Sam, "born from death," which makes it all the more impossible to plan this shit. Devil's due my ass!

So you may have gathered that this movie sucks, but, to be fair, the technical aspects are done well enough for me to stop the score from plummeting. The shots are clean and there isn't much shaky cam for this sort of film. The acting is decent and nowhere near as bad as others make it out to be. There is a degree of entertainment to the story, no matter how small, and it will probably appeal to those who don't watch a lot of these films or haven't watched the numerous movies it rips off. But for the horror fans, there's nothing to see here. The story is full of stupidity, but it's more the blandness to it all that makes it terrible. They could have worked with the material to attempt a hint at originality or to play with expectations. Like what if you found out the cult was trying to destroy the baby rather than protect it? Or you find out Sam was in on it all along? Anything would have been better. This is an easy pass to say the least.

Notable Moment: When Zach is all too happy to find out Sam is pregnant. Yeah fucking right. Don't bullshit a bullshitter!

Final Rating: 4.5/10