When you hate someone’s face, it comes with a sacrifice. It means that news about that person gets drawn to you like a magnet. I found out about The Devil All the Time because Robert Pattinson is in it and adopted some weird accent for the role so the universe had to let me know so I could hate him some more, I guess? I heard that Tom Holland was in it so out of an odd combination of morbid curiosity and admiration for the respective actors, I added it to my queue, but it was unlikely that I would watch it because I have deliberately seen too many Pattinson films that I genuinely wanted to see so one that explicitly sucked did not see like a convincing draw. It could die unwatched in the queue as far as I was concerned; however as a hate watch party with a friend that lives on the other side of the country, it was irresistible. I even learned how to use Teleparty, formerly known as Netflix Party, to make it happen.
The Devil All the Time is an adaptation of a novel that I will never read. It is the kind of the story that high school me would have loved because of the themes of God, men’s false interpretation of God and violence, the way that all the characters came together, but as a forty-five year old woman, I find absurd, predictable and heavy-handed. Just like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon enjoy doing blue collar, crime drama cosplay in their films, a bunch of men actors mostly from countries other than the US get to play Southerners. Foreigners are taking our jobs. As a black woman New Yorker, consider me the farthest thing from an advocate for Southern white men, but we have binders full of the genuine born and bred variety who are excellent actors. Did we need to go to Sweden, Australia or the United Kingdom? Or is it that the real deals saw how ridiculous the story was and ran the other way? Hopefully the latter thus I will not complain about the lack of black characters in the movie. It is totally fine. Give me a waiver to sign. I know the author is from that region, but would other Southerners cosign this film?
The Devil All the Time is about a guy whose early exposure to God is filled with nothing but blood and misery so he is understandably not a fan, but becomes the equivalent of the hand of God to destroy wolves in sheep clothing; thus the title. The characters are not three-dimensional characters with hobbies, interests, friends, but exist for bad things to happen to them to set them on a collision course of cheap catharsis using the thinnest veneer of what parades itself as deep significance. If it was not so inadvertently and inappropriately funny, it would be almost unbearable to watch with a punishing length of two hours eighteen minutes. Dog lovers should probably skip it.
If I had to choose one aspect of The Devil All the Time that I did not like, it would have to be the narrative structure. My kingdom for a chronological narrative structure! I beg you filmmakers please do not do a flashback of a scene that I already saw moments ago. A quick flash to remind us of what happened earlier is fine, but rewatching the entire scene feels repetitive and monotonous. It is not as if the scene was that good the first time around. Who are you kidding? I understand that it is supposed to give the viewer deeper insight into what we saw, but considering that the narrator, who is the author of the book, gives away fistful of spoilers, why not just tell the story chronologically or eliminate the clunky narration. It is not as if we were going for suspense. One person gets ditched on the side of the road never to inexplicably be seen again. A couple of changes from the book to the screen seem as if the film was overly concerned about people thinking too poorly of certain characters. What!?! Have you met these people? The film version does not exactly make them more palatable. Why are you pulling punches now?
The Devil All the Time’s story is dumb and unrealistic, and I watch comic book movies. People are not great at murdering on their first go and too many first timers in this film are too efficient and perfect at killing. It completely alienated me from the movie and signaled unintended information about a character that was never on the page. If a man can easily stab a woman with a screwdriver without screwing up, it probably isn’t his first rodeo. Either he has been stabbing lots of living things with a screwdriver or that his first time should be a hot mess. A woman knowingly hangs with a serial killer for two reasons: she enjoys it, and/or he is abusing her too. The film never really tackles the psychological complexity of such a person, but seems more comfortable acting as if it is something that is happening to her, not something that she actively participates in. Women mainly exist to suffer and die…or cook and be kind. The film suffers from a lack of nuance and texture.
If I had to compliment The Devil All the Time, it is as a learning tool for random facts. I found myself Googling bunyavirus, recalling that in fact crucifixion was a thing during World War II and generally. I am actually going to be generous and compliment Pattinson because he may be the only actor who gave the performance that the movie deserved. I would never call him a genius—raise your standards, people, the bar is literally underground and rolling down a hill to the center of the earth, but in many ways, his character is one of the most normal, disgusting, plausible people in the movie. When he realizes that he has accidentally entered Murderpalooza town, which he should have known based on the life story of one of the girls that he abuses, he is the only one shocked and clutches his pearls and rightfully so. Most outbursts of violence barely get a raised eyebrow. In a world where anyone can get it, why do people act so reckless in that town? Are you new? Everyone should have a buddy system and see it coming.
In a plot twist that I did not see coming, I no longer see Bill Skarsgard as a good actor. He impressed me as Pennywise, but as a traumatized vet, husband and father, I kept thinking that a younger Michael Shannon would have nailed the role. He did not take me on the necessary emotional journey that I needed to buy his character’s story arc. Maybe he needs the makeup to act through and normal becoming unhinged is not his forte.
I cannot recommend The Devil All the Time except as a hate watch. There are too many good movies out there to watch this one. It has a been there, done that quality when it comes to its treatment of corruption and violence in the name of God. I already survived 2016 to now somehow. In comparison to real life, the movie pulls punches and seems unprepared to really tackle the thorny issues of the horrific ways that people try to connect with God and handle life. Real life is more of a horror show.