Review: The Good Things Devils Do

No. 

When a criminal (Bill Oberst Jr.) and his locksmith partner/daughter (Mary Katherine O’Donnell) break into a house on Halloween, they get more than they bargained for–an ancient and evil vampire to be exact. Now they have to work together with the house’s owner (David Rucker III), his wife (Linnea Quigley), and his middle-aged step daughter (Kelley Wilson Robinson) to survive the night. Oh, and there’s also the stark raving, sex-pervert, lunatic (Kane Hodder) out to murder them too. 

I did not care for this movie. In fact, I downright didn’t like it. The Good Things Devils Do is in fact quite bad. Knowing where to start is difficult, so let’s just begin with the technical issues. 

Firstly, there is the sound. I have no idea what happened, but it is unfinished. There are scenes that have pops between the different audio clips in dialogue. There are issues where dialogue is panned incorrectly into only one channel. There are sections that just aren’t given any foley work. There is a lack of any background or ambient sound, with everything sounding like it’s in a vacuum and leaving dialogue as the only thing in the mix. This list could be nearly unending. Needless to say the sound is beyond amateurish. I don’t know if they didn’t give the proper time to post sound or hired someone who didn’t know what they were doing or both. But, it’s not good. 

The movie swings back and forth from shots that look fairly professional and shots that look like a beginning level gaffer was in charge of the lights. Again, perhaps there were time issues on set, and honestly the lighting wasn’t the most egregious i’ve seen in a low budget film. However, the creative decision to use colored gels/LEDs without motivation and in nearly every scene was frustrating. The movie is spooky and its set on halloween, but we don’t need a fucking pink light shining on people’s faces all the goddamn time. Its stupid! If you’re going to have over-the-top carnival lighting at least motivate it or make it an unmotivated dream-state aesthetic. This is just gaudy and obnoxious. 

Here we come to the most egregious bit, the writing. Nothing happens in this movie. It takes place in like a handful of rooms. There is absolutely no real plot. There are no real characters. This is a student thesis with enough of a budget to become a feature. A bad student thesis. The movie begins with some bullshit, edge-lord gangster plot that goes nowhere and is just an excuse to get two of the “characters” to the vampire house. It’s also a way to shoehorn Kane Hodder into the movie as a sexually violent thug who gets killed off fairly quickly. The antagonistic vampire/demon/things are both demons and vampires for some reason in this movie. It’s confusing, and the film doesn’t provide anything in the way of rules for them, outside of their eyes being dangerous. The movie is going for horror-comedy, I think, but the jokes don’t land and the horror doesn’t scare. It’s 80 minutes of nothing. There aren’t any actual jokes in this movie either. People say things like, “Maaaan. This shit is fucked up.” and “Are you serious?” and other horrible things. There’s also an insistent need to refer to women’s “holes” throughout the movie. I’m sure this is influenced by demon characters in other horror films being crass and vulgar. But, it’s just cringy here, especially when you take into account the middle-aged school girl character who repeatedly shows her ass to camera. The movie continually has characters say things and do things to be EXTREME™ and TOO FAR™, but it’s just desperate. The movie is just full of yelling and things that happen. There is no story or set up or really anything. Scenes happen and then scenes happen after those scenes are done. It’s really mind-numbing stuff. 

As far as positives go, there are a couple to note. Firstly, the lighting wasn’t bad all the time. Secondly, there is a scene where the schoolgirl character and the mom talk with telepathy as she drinks her daughter’s blood. It was kinda cool in a vapid Clueless meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer sort of way. Lastly, the movie was only 80 minutes, unfortunately that comes in at about 80 minutes too long. 

Conclusion:

The Good Things Devils Do is like if a student gangster movie fucked a student horror movie with visuals from Party City. I don’t like this movie. I don’t recommend it