“Bury the Devil” (2026) chronicles seventy-five minutes during the first evening that Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) is taking care of seventy-something Evelyn or Evie (Dawn Ford), who is dying and has dementia, at the home that she formerly shared with her ex-husband, Randall (Bill Rowat). When Randall visits, things go from bad to worse as Evelyn goes from acting strangely to terrorizing and killing anyone within reach. Julia signed up for more than she realized: a possessed patient. How will Julia help her patient? While successful as a filmmaking challenge to film a horror movie in one take, “Bury the Devil” does not add much to the possession subgenre of horror except a mean-spirited twist, which is insufficient to retroactively distinguish it from others.
The details on the characters are sparse, but Martinez and Ford do their best to fill in the blanks. Martinez has a heavy lift because her character must do stupid things without losing the audience’s favor. She is convincing as a compassionate caregiver, but the character is annoying as a potential final girl and has the survival skills of a gnat. Director Adam O’Brien, cowriters Brian Hodson and John Petrizzi make Julia curious so O’Brien has an excuse to show the house’s layout and add some spooky atmospheric details, but atmosphere alone cannot frighten the viewer. Set decorator Felix Gouin and assistant set decorator Natasha Kenrick nail all the little details that scream occult, but it is unfortunate that there were not more scenes setting up the minutiae of the mythology, which means it goes to waste. There is a setup for Julia and Evie to have a subversive mother and daughter dynamic, but it is not threaded sufficiently throughout the entire Rube Goldbergian narrative for it to work.
Ford meets the challenge of playing multiple characters: the old, functional Evie when she is having a solid moment of awareness, the confused Evie and the demon. It looks like she had a blast kicking everyone’s ass and gnawing on the scenery. It is always more fun to play the villain. Also, that crawl along the floor is impressive. Younger actors would probably find it challenging to execute some of those moves. The demon does not have a distinct personality and is mostly generic.
The premise of “Bury the Devil” is inherently interesting. If you ever know or took care of a person with dementia, you are sadly aware of how dealing with their behavior can be challenging because if the person is unable to retain memories, any progress gets erased and needs to be reestablished repeatedly. Some people with dementia get attracted to objects and move them. Others have violent outbursts and can pose a physical threat. When Evelyn behaves erratically, no one would automatically jump to the conclusion of possession except the audience so the pleasure is waiting to see how long Julia will take to figure out that something is wrong and which straw would break the proverbial camel’s back.
The tension lies in an element not teased in any of the promotions: Julia’s duty to protect her patient. If “Bury the Devil” loses momentum, it is because the storyline unfortunately detracts from the two women, who are strangers, playing against each other and introduces more characters instead of organically letting the tension build. It could have been a character study and a satire of polite society like “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967) with Julia attempting to do her job in ridiculous, mounting circumstances then wondering when she will throw in the towel. Instead, it begins in media res with the ending, which is often a mistake because then it drains any suspense from the story. Instead of exploring themes or character development, the story leans towards the sensational and physical confrontations, which is impressive considering that it has to be accomplished in one take, but does nothing for the story. It tends to get boring once the demon is out of the bag, and it is an emotional cop out. The tone stays at a ten and gets monotonous.
New characters also introduce logistic issues because they are not well thought out. O’Brien originally conceived of the story, and Philip Kalin-Hajdu worked on the dialogue. Has anyone on the team of people behind the scenes hired someone to care for a loved one and actually was involved in the process from soup to nuts? It is easier to believe in demon possession than the set up depicted in “Bury the Devil.” Who hired Julia? Once someone has dementia, someone must be in the house with them the entire time, and the person who hired her in the movie does not appear until late at night after Julia arrives. So presumably Evie let her in and set her up. Um, no. Then Julia is totally cool with that person disturbing Evelyn after she went to bed, and Julia would at least be a little snarky. It just gets more ridiculous after that, and the twist counters the idea that this visitor, who acts as if they have not seen Evie in ages, did not do it, but Evie did, which is a Herculean stretch.
Visually “Bury the Devil” works better than most films set at night in dark atmosphere. Lately I’ve been receiving screeners that can only play on my desktop as the largest available screen, and it has been like listening to radio drama after radio drama. So, O’Brien is doing better than “Game of Thrones” and a lot of creators with more experience and resources, but there are enough moments that it is almost impossible to discern what is happening that it is not exactly a slam dunk, especially when Julia is in the cellar. The one take works but is less of a hook and more of a gimmick to attract audiences, and while it shows skill, it is not enough to make the story entertaining or more frightening. Also, O’Brien breaks the one rule of budget filmmaking. Viewers are comparing budget films to commercial films so only execute the best special effects that you can afford but ditch it if it looks goofy. There is one scene in the denouement that looks amateurish, and before, O’Brien would turn the camera away to imply action without showing it. He should have done it at that point. Also, O’Brien favors having the camera go in many circles around the characters, and it just does not work. Bring the Dramamine.
There are rumors that “Bury the Devil” is part of a trilogy. Eek. Please no. There is barely enough to keep the entire runtime of the first movie going. The possession genre is already saturated, and it is verging on impossible to find a fresh take on it though it is possible. You will not find that fresh take here, especially considering that the poster spoils the only possible novelty. Also, it is not as mean as it could be. Next time, hire at least one woman to work on the story and escalate the stakes and attitude.
