The Devil All the Time
2020 · Directed by Antonio Campos
Original language: English
- crime
- drama
- thriller
The story
In Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters converge around young Arvin Russell as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family.
What it’s like
Washed-out, sun-bleached Appalachian heat and dust, shot with a grim, unblinking patience: long static frames of rural roads, sagging porches and tin-roofed churches under flat daylight, then sudden dark interiors lit by a single bulb or the blue wash of a motel sign. The palette is muddy greens, rust and bruised grey, with little warmth to relieve it. Long takes let scenes breathe until the dread gathers, and the soundtrack leans on a low, droning score and stretches of near silence broken by gunshots and church hymns. Its tone is slow-burning, fatalistic unease, a gothic southern noir that moves at a deliberate, creeping pace. Violence is frequent and sometimes sudden, including gun deaths, a serial killer's murders, a suicide and graphic bloody moments, all landing hard and unflinching rather than stylised. Sexual content is present but not central. It suits a late, alone-in-the-dark viewing when you can sit with bleakness. Not for anyone wanting gentle or cozy; it is for viewers drawn to brutal, morally rotten small-town stories about faith curdled into violence.
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