DEVIL'S GATE (2017)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    Clay Staub
Writer:       Peter Aperlo, Clay Staub
Producer:  Scott Mednick, Andre Rouleau, Valerie D’Auteuil, Ian Dimerman, Brendon Sawatzky
Stars:     Amanda Schull, Milo Ventimiglia, Shawn Ashmore, Bridget Regan, Jonathan Frakes, Javier Botet

Review Score:

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Summary:

Investigating a farmer over the disappearance of his wife and son leads an FBI agent and a small town deputy into an unfathomable mystery.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Stranded motorist Pearce Bacca seeks help at the remote Pritchard farm. Frightened when he spies farmer Jackson Pritchard shouting at an unseen entity, Pearce stumbles into a booby trap and dies. Jackson later buries Pearce’s body.

FBI Special Agent Daria Francis arrives in Devil’s Gate, North Dakota to investigate the disappearance of Jackson’s wife Maria and young son Jonah. Following a contentious welcome by Sheriff Gruenwell, who insists that Daria keep her suspicions off of Jackson, Daria partners with kindly deputy Conrad ‘Colt’ Salter.

Daria and Colt interview Maria’s sister Theresa Locke, who reported Maria and Jonah missing. Theresa and her elderly mother both mention observing a recent rise in Jackson’s temper. Daria recovers Jonah’s sketchbook of disturbing drawings.

Against the sheriff’s orders, Daria convinces Colt to take her to see Jackson. Daria and Colt find Pearce’s disabled car stranded outside the farm. Colt tells Daria that the booby traps all over the property were not there when he visited several days earlier.

Daria finds Maria’s car hidden in the barn, indicating that Maria never left to see her sister before disappearing like Jackson claimed. Jackson takes Daria at gunpoint, but Daria ultimately gets the drop on Jackson and has Colt put him in handcuffs.

A strange noise is heard coming from the house. Jackson warns Daria to not investigate. While Colt stays outside with Jackson, Daria goes into the farmhouse’s cellar. Daria discovers a strange humanoid creature held captive in a cage.

Daria questions Jackson about the creature. Jackson claims it is a demon like the one who took his wife and son, and he is holding it hostage in hopes of making an exchange.

Daria and Colt try to leave with Jackson, but discover that their phones and car are completely dead. An unnatural lightning storm suddenly attacks the trio, destroying the patrol car and forcing everyone to retreat inside the house.

After the attack subsides, Maria mysteriously reappears outside. When she regains consciousness, Maria blames Jackson for willingly giving Jonah to the creatures under the belief that they were angels. Jackson confesses that he prayed for the creatures to come and heal Jonah when the boy got sick. However, the alien beings took Maria too, although Jackson managed to capture one of the humanoids.

Another alien infiltrates the house, but Daria fends off its attack. The quartet discovers Jackson’s dog Earl mutilated.

Colt helps Jackson, who is determined to bargain for his son’s return, sever a finger from the captive alien. Jackson takes the digit to a stone disc with alien markings in the ground outside. The finger disappears in a beam of light from the sky. Daria matches the markings on the disc to one of Jonah’s drawings and concludes that the disc is an alien teleporter.

Daria notices one of the alien discs in an old photo of Jackson with his father. Jackson admits that his father was involved in some sort of alien conspiracy that cursed his family bloodline.

Jackson experiences an intense psychic moment when he touches the captive alien. Afterward, Jackson reveals that the aliens created the body he currently inhabits while the fully human Jackson was destroyed.

Maria shows Daria and Colt a collection of dead alien babies that she had given birth to and that Jackson killed as abominations. Daria realizes that the aliens are replacing humans and Jackson is now one of them. Jackson admits that the aliens are colonizing Earth because their own world is dying. Jonah is important because he is the first natural born hybrid.

While Daria tries appealing to Jackson for help in confronting the impending alien assault, a creature uses psychic abilities to tear Colt apart. Jackson knocks Daria unconscious. Over his wife’s protests, Jackson takes the captive alien outside to the stone circle. The other alien touches Maria’s stomach.

Daria recovers in time to confront Jackson outside. Jonah returns to the stone circle in a flash of light. Believing him to be an abomination, Jackson prepares to shoot his son. Before Daria can stop him, Maria arrives to execute Jackson with a shotgun. Maria forces Daria to drop her gun, vowing that no one will ever take her son from her again. Another blast of light destroys the summoning disc, leaving a crater in its place.

As authorities process the scene in the light of day, Sheriff Gruenwell insists that Daria stick to a story that dismisses any mention of alien creatures. Daria reluctantly realizes no one will believe the truth as she is driven away.

Some time later, Maria finds Jonah prying open a floorboard in the barn. Jonah tells his mother it is time for the harvest as he shows her a large collection of alien summoning discs.

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Review:

I have to believe that “Devil’s Gate” had grander ambitions at some point during its creative conception.  I have to believe that because I can’t imagine producers, financiers, and onscreen talent willingly went all in on what could have been a humdinger of a premise only to deliver a ho-hum episode of “The X-Files” in DTV feature form.

The first clue of an “oh, hell with it” attitude comes from the cursory characterization of FBI agent Daria Francis.  Daria just arrived in Devil’s Gate, a small North Dakotan farm town whose gruff sheriff (Jonathan Frakes turning in a scant two scenes worth of work) greets her with a scowl while likable deputy Colt Salter (Shawn Ashmore being Shawn Ashmore) welcomes her warmly.

Daria earned banishment to these typical horror flick sticks by letting too tight of a ponytail trump her compassion, leading to an unfortunate woman’s avoidable death.  “Devil’s Gate” deems this bit of background important enough to deserve its own flashback before promptly receding back where it came from.  I doubt that a quick connective callback via discarded dialogue later down the line was this piece’s only planned purpose.  My guess says the redemptive arc of learning to relate to people instead of to protocol bore more weight in a draft of the script that didn’t make it to the final cut.

Daria’s other flash of individuality comes from an admission that she quit smoking, although she keeps a cigarette pack in her pocket to remind her.  Remind her of what, she doesn’t specify.  Remember this only if you want to additionally wonder why it matters when she lights up for one puff at the climax’s conclusion.  If these are the only developmental beats that attracted actress Amanda Schull, playing a Poor Man’s Naomi Watts-type role, she might wish to reconsider how she selects future projects.

Daria partners with kindly Colt to investigate the disappearance of Maria and Jonah Pritchard, the wife and young son of irritable local farmer Jackson Pritchard.  Jackson is played by Milo Ventimiglia, who would have a much better chance of selling sand to camels than selling anyone on his thoroughly unconvincing country accent.  I would have added a region as an adjective in front of “accent,” except I’m not sure even Ventimiglia knows who/what he intended to sound like.

Daria assumes she has an open and shut case on her hands with abusive husband/father Jackson as the one and only suspect.  What she actually has is a conundrum of Carl Kolchak proportions, as the cause of the crimes involves a cryptozoological component too impossible to believe.  Now Daria is mired in a mystery seemingly no one, particularly Jackson, wants her to solve.  But leaving the situation to sort itself isn’t an option when a member of Jackson’s family inexplicably reappears, bringing additional entities along with her.

The economics of confining four main players to an isolated farm keeps the setup simple.  Meanwhile, the weirdness of the sci-fi/thriller scenario makes the movie unusual enough to remain mildly intriguing.  Beyond that, there simply isn’t anything about the film worth describing with more enthusiasm than, “it’s fine.”  Modestly ambitious in concept, “Devil’s Gate” is only complacently competent in execution.

Otherwise affable actors are offset by having their personalities funneled into poorly defined stereotypes.  Practical creature effects see their impact lessened by fiction alternating between leaving its potential unfulfilled and flat out falling apart from flimsiness.  Everyone and everything involved puts on a decent display, yet falls well short of having enough batsh*t crazy energy to qualify as fascinating.

As speculated at the start of this text, creators plant novel seeds for something sharp, smart, and original.  Then they apparently run out of time, money, or inspiration to take anything over those tops, settling for standardized suspense instead.

I’ve been giving what feels like a large number of 50/100 scores recently.  I’m uncertain if this reflects a general wave of inoffensive mediocrity in current genre movies or my own apathetic shoulder-shrugging toward that mediocrity.  In any event, “Devil’s Gate” earns that impartial score simply for being a textbook definition of unremarkably “average.”  If not for that, then for being an example of a film fitting best as forgettable fodder for a subscription service stream.

Review Score:  50

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