Where the Devil Hides (2014) Reviews

• Would probably have worked better taking a more dramatic approach

  Seth_Rogue_One2016-02-19

  I went in to this movie not really thinking it would be all great, Jennifer Carpenter (from TV's Dexter) was the swing-vote why I decided to go ahead with it. However she was not really why I kept interest, cause frankly she wasn't that great in this one. Luckily the other cast was slightly better, no Academy award winning performances or anything but decent enough. I went in to it thinking it would be a horror, and even though the beginning of the movie does fall in line with that and there are horror elements that pop out from time to time in the movie I'd say it's first and foremost a drama. And even though the horror segments are neatly orchestrated it often just don't feel like it's from the same movie sometimes, characters who at one point are shook up can in the next minute be going on their business like nothing happened, so yeah uneven direction for sure. It's almost as if someone wrote a somewhat realistic day to day script what life in a cult would be like and then some big shots told someone else to re-write it to a horror instead so they just cut and pasted some horror segments into the script where it could fit. And the ending is pretty awful. 5/10

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• A surprisingly good horror movie that deals with one of the scariest things of all, evil done in the name of God.

  cosmo_tiger2014-11-05

  "6 girls born on the 6th day of the 6th month. Their 18th birthday is approaching. 1 will emerge." When the 18th birthday of the daughters of Jacob Brown (Sewell) and others in a quaint Amish town approaches things become uneasy. One of the town's leaders and elder Beacon (Meaney) recounts a prophecy about the devil coming to the village. He fears that these girls are the reason for the happenings and begins to do anything he can to stop the prophecy from coming true. The girls on the other hand have a different story to tell. Going in I was expecting yet another cheesy low budget horror movie. I was surprised at how much I liked this. Without trying to start something I do think that religion in the hands of the wrong people is very dangerous and this movie is an example of why I feel that way. The best part of the movie though is that it stays one step ahead of you and you never really feel comfortable with what you are seeing. That is the sign of a good movie to me, one that keeps you guessing at the same time you are becoming angry at what you are seeing. Overall, a surprisingly good horror movie that deals with one of the scariest things of all, evil done in the name of God. I give this a B+.

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• Seen a better version of this before.

  chrismackey19722014-10-09

  It starts out in a community where electricity is not used. One might think it's an Amish community, but none of the men have beards, so go figure. Anyway, six baby girls are born on the 6th day of the 6th month - 666. Elder Beacon (Colm Meany) considers that to be a bad omen, and he goes to kill them, but he is stopped by Jacob (Rufus Sewell). However, one of the mothers kills her child and then slits her own throat. Fast forward 18 years when the 5 remaining girls are bathing in a lake. While doing so, a naked man jumps into the lake causing the girls to get out. However, one of the girls - Mary (Alycia Debnam Carey) - has a seizure, and Trevor (Thomas McDonnell) jumps in, swims over, pulls her out and gives her CPR. When Mary gets home, she goes into the chicken coop, which looks more like a crawl space, and somebody with a black glove and a scythe tries to grab her. She breaks away and runs through the woods until she comes to an old, decayed well, which she crawls down to hide. There's more to this scene, but I won't spoil it. The next day, Elder Beacon informs the community that one of the girls - Hannah - has gone missing. The four remaining girls decide that regardless of the community's rules, they have to look for their friend. However, that night, Elder Beacon insists that the girls are nowhere to be found because they're conspiring with Satan against the community. Yeah, he still wants to kill them. That night, while looking for Hannah, another of the girls - Abigail - goes missing. The next day, Trevor goes to the community and tells Mary one of his friends is also missing. That night, Jacob tells Mary about the prophecy regarding the 6-born girls. On their 18th birthday, only one would remain, and she would become the Devil's Hand, hence the movie title, even though they've changed it like twice already. lol. There is nudity in this. As mentioned, a naked man swings into a lake, and his butt is shown. Mary is made to strip in the church for Elder Beacon, and her butt is shown (maybe it was a body double, but it was still a nude butt). I gave this movie a 3-star rating because parts of it were VERY dark, making it hard to make out what was happening. I don't like it when they do that. It wasn't original, and the storyline wasn't especially intriguing. The acting was pretty good, but the movie didn't keep my interest, and the ending was...silly.

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• Boring, Uneventful, Slow, And Pretty Painful

  dfa1203742015-01-20

  The elders of an Amish-type community are in fear of an ancient evil prophecy coming true when six girls are all born at the same time....on the sixth day of the sixth month. The prophecy states that one of the girls born will become the "Devil's Hand". 18 years later, the girls have all grown up together as friends, but when one of them starts to have horrific visions, suspicion starts to arise that she may be the "Devil's Hand" and the prophecy may be coming true. The Devil's Hand is, well, how can I say this? BORING! I know that's not a very ingenious way of putting it, but it gets straight to the point I think. This is basically an 86-minute snoozefest from start to finish, and never once does it get tense, suspenseful, scary, or frightening. In fact, the film comes across more as a kind of teenie drama instead of a satanic horror/thriller, especially when one of the girl characters befriends an "outsider's" son. Then it becomes more of a :::gag::: love story. The plot is unimaginative and unoriginal, and really apart from the ending, which does have a nice wee twist, it's all rather predictable. On paper the cast is quite decent, but unfortunately the majority of their performances are about as wooden as Pinocchio. You don't feel any affinity towards any of the characters either, and - like me - you may actually find yourself not giving a damn on who lives and who dies. I know a lot of the parts are supposed to be subdued due to the type of community the characters are from, but even taking that into consideration, they are still well below par. Colm Meaney is over-the-top as Elder Beacon, and instead of coming across as menacing, he just succeeds in being annoying, melodramatic, and sleazy. Jennifer Carpenter isn't too bad, though, and she does play a perfect b*tch for her role. All in all, The Devil's Hand is really one of those films that you will see once and then never give it a second thought. Definitely one to avoid & forget to be honest.

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• The Ending Ruined Whatever Potential There Was For This Movie

  sddavis632015-07-24

  OK. It wasn't horrible. That's meant as a compliment because I was pretty much expecting it to be horrible. Now, I'm not saying it was wonderful, or good or anything like that. Let's not get crazy. It's a weak horror movie with a silly story. Six girls are born on the sixth day of the sixth month in some type of isolated religious community called New Bethlehem - a community led by (or lorded over by) Elder Beacon, played by Colm Meaney, who was certainly the most recognizable face in this. Beacon prophesies that one of them will turn out to be the devil incarnate, and which one it is will be the only one left by the time the girls turn 18. Sure enough, as their 18th birthday approaches, the girls begin to disappear. What's happening? Is the prophecy real? Is the devil really working through one of these girls? Or is Beacon the true evil one? It's watchable pretty much all the way through. But in the end, it disappoints. As long as you believe that Beacon is evil and responsible for everything, then you actually have not just a cheap sort of horror movie, but an actually believable (in an exaggerated sort of way) look at the potential dangers of these isolated religious communities whose lives revolve around the decisions of a single charismatic leader, whose hold on the community is so strong that he can do pretty much whatever he wants. Meaney was good in the role. He took it seriously and seemed to capture the inner workings of Beacon. This would have been OK - not great, but OK - if that had been the outcome of the movie: a community that eventually rebels against an evil demagogue. But, alas, that wasn't the decision. It had to end on a supernatural note. I won't go into much detail. I don't want to spoil the twist too much - but Beacon (evil, religious, charismatic demagogue though he was) really wasn't responsible. He actually turned out to be right! The devil was responsible - and he wasn't the one the devil was working through! That threw me. Disappointed me. Discombobulated me. Upset me. How else can I put it? The end took a movie that I had been prepared to promote to a few degrees above silly (because I thought it really had offered a decent look at the potential abuses in such a community) and it just became silly again. And that's the thought that lingers in my mind after watching this. Too bad. There was potential for better. (2/10)

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