Shame the Devil (2013) Directed by Paul Tanter

All things considering, this really isn't a bad movie, which is all mostly due to its pretty solid story.

At first sight this movie perhaps may come across as a very formulaic and predictable one. One that keeps 'borrowing' heavily from other and much better known successful genre movies. And well, in some ways that's still the case but at the same time the movie as a whole manages to feel like a solid and original enough one on its own.

I simply have to admit that I liked the core story of the movie. In its core, this is a classic and generic detective/crime movie, about the hunt of a serial killer. It's a whodunit as well, in which basically every supporting character is a suspect. I admit, it were a bit too many though. It's one of those movies in which it really doesn't matter too much who eventually is going to turn out to be the killer. It besides was somewhat annoying how the movie constantly kept introducing new characters, that could be put on the 'suspects list' as well. Nevertheless, I liked the killer and all of his/her creative killings. The movie uses a pretty original approach to its concept, making this a pleasant one to watch, though at the same time it isn't ever becoming a truly surprising or very engaging movie with anything.

Despite all of its solid thriller themes and elements, the movie never manages to work out as a tense one as well. Perhaps it's all due to it that the movie was trying to be a totally serious and very authentic movie, while it didn't really had the budget for things to ever fully work out. You can say it was thinking too highly of itself or perhaps it was aiming for something that just was out of its reach. There is just something off sometimes about an obvious low budget movie that's trying to be all serious with its subject manner.

The movie really isn't that long but it still manages to feel needlessly long. It's all because the movie features some stretched out scenes in it, often accompanied by some poor and pointless dialog. Perhaps also another reason why the movie feels overlong is because you can basically divide it into two separate parts. The first part of the movie is set in London and the second one in New York. Was this really needed? Does it add anything to the story that about half way through it changes settings In my opinion not and it also does feel like a bit of a weird move actually. Everything that happens in New York in this movie easily could have been placed in London as well.

But really, for such a low budget movie, with so many unknown people involved, this movie still is quite the accomplishment! I just have to give it lots of credits for having a solid main story in it, that's solid enough for me to call this movie a perfectly watchable one.

6/10

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