Gave the new Netflix movie The Devil All The Time a watch. This flick is most notable for a pretty interesting cast including Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgard, Sebastian Stan, Jason Clarke, Mia Wasikowska, and others. It’s set in southeeast Ohio and West Virginia and that cast… well that’s a lot of put-on accents for a bunch of Brits, Scandinavians, and Aussies. Not that that’s a crime… though there’s plenty of that in this sordid little story.
The flick is set in the 1950s and ’60s and follows the despondent lives of a bunch of poor backwoods types. There’s pretty much not a single “good” person in the flick… you got your quiet violent types, your pervy photographer serial killers, crooked cops, local gangsters, predatory preachers, and the like. It’s very much a sordid southern gothic that reminds me of a more laid back, morose, less talky Tarantino flick. There’s a half dozen stories being told and we’re waiting for them to collide… which they eventually do in a pretty surprising (and somewhat random) ways.
I enjoyed this movie… but it can be a pretty uncomfortable and gloomy watch. I liked the acting and the actors and the seedy/sleaze atmosphere that permeates it. There is an ultimate cynical and defeatist mood and, by the end, you might sit back and say “what was THAT all about?” It reminds me of a more somber and tawdry version of Burn After Reading… “what did we learn here?” <shrug>.”
I don’t think this flick is for everyone. it’s certainly a long and pretty sleazy soap opera. Certainly it’s nice to see some of these actors stretch their acting creds and play different types of character than they usually do. And if you don’t mind the run-time and the wallowing in grim depression, violence, and perversion, you might dig this flick’s dirt.
Score: 84