The Devil All the Time

 0/4

Starring: Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgard, Hayley Bennett, Riley Keough, Mia Wasikowska, Jason Clarke, Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan

Rated R for Violence, Bloody/Disturbing Images, Sexual Content, Graphic Nudity, and Language Throughout

My dad is a huge fan of my movie reviews and loves listening to me read them.  But whenever I read him a review of a movie that sucked, he tells me to always be positive.  He's my dad and is hopefully a bit wiser than me, so what do I know.  Maybe he has a point.  So for my dad, I'll say this about "The Devil All the Time:" I'm positive that this movie sucks.

This is a vile, reprehensible piece of filth.  The fact that there are some good performances to be found here actually makes it a more miserable experience to sit through.  A person could, I suppose, defend it by saying it's supposed to be dark and violent.  I might agree if there was any point to it all.  But there isn't.  The film's sole purpose is to show a bunch of characters who are evil, cruel or sick and watch them become monsters.  Oh, there are one or two characters who are innocent and pure, but they're the ones who are hurt the most.

The film tells a collage of stories set in one area of West Virginia.  Returning soldier Willard Russell (Skarsgard) finds religion as he struggles to come to terms with his experiences fighting in the Pacific.  His son Arvin (Holland) fights to protect the dignity of his deeply religious stepsister Lenora (Scanlen).  A sheriff (Stan) will do anything to gain power and inflate his ego.  And a pair of serial killers (Keough and Clarke) prey on those unfortunate enough to cross their paths.

These storylines are told in tandem but don't always occur in the same time periods.  Co-writer/director Antonio Campos is trying to make an ensemble film, and he botches it.  Not only is the film occasionally incoherent, the characters are so badly developed that we never have a rooting interest in them.  In fact, the only thing that sets them apart is who I hated more.  By and large they're all wretched people who deserve to die horrible, bloody deaths.  That might be grounds for compelling viewing ("Sin City" is a good example of how that can work) if I found them interesting people.  But no.  They're actively unpleasant and I wished Leatherface would show up.

The cast is made up of a who's who of up and coming actors, which made me wonder what exactly they saw in this screenplay.  Were they actively trying to sabotage their careers?  Most are effective, with special mentions going to the ladies, who are uniformly excellent.  Riley Keough, despite being a promising and talented actress, has the dubious distinction of being in two movies that will end up on my Bottom 10 list this year (as bad as "The Lodge" was, this is worse).  Some, like Robert Pattinson and Sebastian Stan, give it a game try but are out of their element.

What really offended me was the film's tone.  Campos seems to proud of how nihilistic his film is.  In addition to repeatedly showing that everything the characters do is pointless, his treatment of religion is ridicule.  Those who are religious have horrible things happen to them or lead them to do horrible things.  Pattinson's preacher character is a sleazy creep who uses religion to con women into sex (and he gets more depraved from there).  There is a palpable sense of ironic distance that has the impact of someone pointing and laughing like a middle school bully.  It's a tone that carries through the movie from beginning to end.

I wouldn't object to this movie's content or array of despicable characters if there was any point to it.  But there isn't.  It's just more than two hours of endless and pointless negativity and cynicism.  Watching this movie was a sickening experience, and at one point I wanted to vomit.  The stench of this movie is that strong.

Now excuse me while I do something constructive with my time as opposed to continuing to give any more attention to this trash.