Horror Movie Review: The Devil Below (2021)

The Devil Below is a horror film that was directed by Bradley Parker, releasing to VOD in 2021.

The foreman of a mining company and his son, Derek are having a discussion about an unsafe co-worker. Suddenly, some kind of creature grabs Derek and drags him away as well as injuring his father in the process. Years later, a team of scientists begin an expedition to the lost mining town of Shookum Hills. They are led by Arianne who’s a guide of some kind. Shookum Hills had a population of 1000+ and they, along with the town disappeared. It’s believed that the disappearance is related to rumours of underground fires that resulted in sinkholes swallowing up the town. Team leader Darren believes that the fires were started by a rare mineral.

Arianne asks for directions from locals but instead gets told to go back home. She refuses so the locals hassle the group further. Soon after, they come across a dirt road that leads to an electrified fence. This doesn’t stop them and they soon discover a sinkhole that has been covered by another electrified covering. While they’re investigating the hole, one of the team is pulled in by a creature. They will soon come to realise that they have unleashed something monstrous and must now somehow survive.

The Devil Below is a truly mundane horror film. Firstly, it’s abundantly obvious that this film doesn’t have the biggest budget going. The monsters don’t look too bad based on the little that you do see of them. I credit the film for doing a decent job of hiding its shortcomings. However, there are a number of times when they go down the CGI route and it looks horrible. I may be wrong but I thought I spotted a suit in there at one point. Then again, if it looked any good they definitely would have shown it off which they don’t.

I liked that the characters seemed just like regular people and acted like scientists at first. Afterwards, they make dumb decision after dumb decision. Also, you learn next to nothing about any of them so caring about their fates is almost impossible. Arianne is a strangely written protagonist. Her introduction had me expecting Lara Croft but instead she’s just useless.

One thing that annoyed me was the locals not just being open with the scientists and Arianne. It’s not like proving the existence of these creatures is difficult, they are literally right there. It would have saved them a lot of trouble and probably prevented this boring film from needing to exist. Also, why not just call in the military? Again, the monsters are there to see and it would be fixed quickly.

The concept doesn’t even feel original. It’s very reminiscent of the lots of horror films that have been done. The finale has some nice moments but the budget just isn’t there. I wanted to see it go all Aliens of something. You know, go down there with loads of guns and explosives but no. We just get nonsensical sequel-bait for a sequel that will likely never happen.

The worst part is that the film doesn’t deliver anything memorable in terms of blood or gore.

Overall, The Devil Below feels like a B-horror film that you would find on the Syfy channel and probably turn off due to boredom.