Tarantino for Hillbillies: A Review of The Devil All the Time

 directed by Antonio Campos

written by Antonio and Paulo Campos 

based on the book by Donald Ray Pollock

Last night, having re-watched the live-action/animation hybrid Saving Sally (a wonderful, if conspicuously flawed movie) I decided to try watching my first Netflix original film since Enola Holmes, and settled on The Devil All the Time, a film I had actually started watching before I had even watched the Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but which I had not finished on the belief that it was a horror movie (owing to the fact that it starred Bill Skarsgard, also known as Pennywise the Clown, and featured an extremely bloody scene early in the film), and therefore something I would not want to watch. Well, after my daughter told me that it was a drama (albeit an extremely violent one)  I decided to check it out, having had my fill of binge watching cartoons for several weeks in a row.

And boy, it could not have been more different.

When Willard Russell, a PTSD afflicted veteran of World War II (Bill Skarskard) comes home, having been deeply-scarred by the war and the disturbing sight of a mangled, skinned but still alive U.S. marine crucified by the Japanese, he settles down in Knockemstiff, Ohio with a charming waitress named Charlotte (Haley Benett) and they have a son, Arvin (Michael Banks Repeta).  Willard, however, is never quite the same. Having abandoned conventional religion, he sets up a makeshift altar in the woods near his home, where he takes his son to pray. His prayers become more frantic when Charlotte falls terminally ill, and when Willard does the unthinkable, Arvin is shipped off to live in Cold Creek, West Virginia with his grandmother Emma (Kristin Griffith) and his uncle Earskell (David Atkinson).  As it happens, Emm and Earskell have also adopted an oprhaned young girl, Leonora, whose mother Helen (Mia Wasikowska) has befallen tragedy at the hands of her preacher husband Roy (Harry Melling), who, himself later fell victim to roving serial killers Carl (Jason Clarke) and Sandy (Riley Keogh), who operate with impunity because Sandy's brother is the corrupt Sheriff of Meade, Ohio, Lee (Sebastian Stan).  

Years later Arvin has grown up to be a troubled teen (Tom Holland) albeit one devoted to his unconventional family consisting of his grandmother, his uncle and his adopted sister Lenora (Eliza Scanlen). When a charismatic new preacher, Reverend Teagardin (Robert Pattinson) moves into Cold Creek, Arvin's grandmother is eager to please and offers him a meal together with the other parishioners, but ends up humiliated. Things get even worse, though, when Teagardin sets his sights on the lonely Lenora, who visits her mother's grave by the church every day. The events that follow set Arvin on a violent path of no return, one that will lead him back to where it all started: Knockemstiff, Ohio. 

As is the case with many films, I cannot go in depth into how I really feel about this movie without spoiling crucial plot points, so I will say that while the strong performances from actors like Holland, Pattinson and Skarsgard are quite compelling, all them feel a bit wasted considering that they are basically in service of a story that just feels promoting violence for the sake of violence.

There seem to be hints of a critique on religion, based on, well, the title, and the depictions of the war-traumatized Willard, the fanatical preacher Roy who dumps spiders on himself during his sermons to show his congregation his faith, and the slimy Teagardin, but it doesn't seem to be the most in-depth or intelligent commentary on a topic that often makes for compelling fiction.  At least two of those characters are sterling examples of mental illness rather than the ills of religion, and one is just a plain old predator. Also, there's plenty of evil on display from people who don't really identify as religious as all, like the corrupt Sheriff Lee or killers Carl and Sandy, so the film doesn't really make a coherent stab at addressing organized (or for that matter, disorganized) religion.  

What the film, to me at least, seems intent on doing is riling up the audience to make them root for the rash of violence that rages throughout the third act, but unlike Quentin Tarantino, who is generally able to balance even the most gratuitous violence with judicious storytelling and leaven it somehow with humor, writer/director Antonio Campos basically just sets  his  characters on a collision course with the third-act bloodbath, and does its best to get us to cheer for it. 

However, for all of the committed performances by the talented actors in this film, I could not. There's a distinct act of cold-blooded murder that happens well into the film, and we're meant to root for it, and the performers almost sell it, but in the end, it is what it is.  I'm not a huge fan of movies that so transparently try to manipulate me into feeling a certain way (which is one reason I hate horror movies) and I definitely don't care much for a movie that tries to tap into some inner bloodlust the filmmaker is hoping to unleash in its audiences. 

So apart from the spectacle of Tom Holland as a violent hillbilly or Robert Pattinson as a slimy degenerate pastor, there really is not much to see here. 

 

6/10