Devour Review
Friends Start Playing an Online Game But Start Turning Up Dead
Jake Gray and his friends begin to play "The Pathway" but Jake starts having terrifying visions. Black magic and the devil are a large part of the mystery.
Devour is a straight-to-video B horror movie with decent production values and solid performances. In a genre teeming with forgettable garbage indistinguishable from one to the next in recent years, this film may be a cut above the rest, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth recommending. It earns points for originality (though the plot may be convoluted and aimless, a little predictable in places, with an intriguing start that dies after fifteen minutes) and performances that, while strong, are wasted on cliched characters that could never be enough to save the movie.
Jake Gray (Jensen Ackles) and his friends begin playing a mysterious online game called The Pathway. His friends start getting aggressive phone calls, manipulating them into hurting those around them. Jake has disturbing visions of death and self-mutilation that he cannot decipher. People in Jake's immediate circle begin turning up dead, raising suspicions and paranoia, driving Jake to uncover what he can about the game, leading to his own questionable past as well.
Unfortunately, what begins as a genuinely good concept disintegrates rapidly as the game fades to the back and the occult and Jake's potentially Satanic parentage feature more prominently. Jake fails to fall prey to the game as his friends did, and he soon finds himself among those who created the game. The game's creation, it appears, had everything to do with finding Jake and uniting him with his past.
Good Straight to Video Horror Movies
A horror movie never had to have a solid plot to be enjoyable, but with little else to offer (no good scares, intriguing characters, funny/memorable dialogue, good yet tame effects), it becomes far more crucial. It's hard to recommend the film, except to say as far as B movies go, it's moderately entertaining. Entertaining does not mean the plot isn't riddled with holes and questionable gaps--both run rampant. And don't try to reason out the ending the film gives, as "thin veneer of plausibility" was apparently enough for the filmmakers.
Halloween Movies
Fans of the leads, Jensen Ackles (from the hit series Supernatural, Dawson's Creek and Smallville), Shannyn Sossamon (The Rules of Attraction, 40 Days and 40 Nights) and Dominique Swain (an up-and-coming easy-on-the-eyes supporting lady) may be the only ones to seek the film out. They could do far worse. Most recent horror movies, especially of the straight-to-video ilk, are often relegated to the unwatchable pile of painfully or laughably bad horror. Devour is best if caught by flipping channels on cable or as part of a Halloween movie marathon. One of its strengths is in being mercifully short, clocking in at 88 minutes.
