Original Title: The Devil All the Time
Year of Release: 2020
Genres: Thriller; Crime; Historical Drama
Director: Antonio Campos
Writers: Antonio Campos, Paulo Campos; Donald Ray Pollock (based on the novel)
Main Cast: Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Haley Bennett, Harry Melling, Eliza Scanlen, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson

One of the more dark, dour, and depressing mainstream (or at least, with an A-list celebrities cast) film I have seen in quite some time! Reading how many found The Devil All the Time to be uneventful with nothing happening is actually quite baffling to me, more a sign of how we are becoming more and more ADHD as audience . I found this adaptation of Ray Pollock's novel to be generally really well made, the 35mm cinematography making this feel more like an older film without homaging films from the '60s, and the soundtrack by Jurriaans-Bensi is as unsettling as all their other scores. The cast is terrific, and while many complained of the accents (was it done on purpose to cast mainly non-Americans here?) I really had no problems with anyone in the cast, and I quite loved Holland, Skarsgard, Keough, Stan, Pattinson and Bennett here!

My only main gripe with the film is how much of a misery porn the story was. I am a big fan of dark and twisted films, but I always wonder what the purpose of said darkness is. In The Devil All the Time there is an examination of religion, in how it is abused and weaponized by some, and how it makes other purer people do good and have better lives. Outside of that, it also explores the outskirts of Southern America and how dangerous they can be, and as interesting as all this can be, it does not feel like this aims at anything. By the end of the film, I felt emotionally drained, no real sense of hope, no feeling of catharsis, but also not changed. I wonder if this is what Campos was going for, and if the novel itself is also just very depressing. In a way, it works, and I would recommend the film only to those sick people like myself who like to feel like absolute garbage after 2+ hours of movie-watching, but I also cannot deny that I am struggling to find a purpose behind the events of this story.

Story: 6.5
Directing: 7.5
Cinematography: 8.5
Acting: 8.5
Sound: 8.5
Visual Effects: 8

ENJOYMENT: 7.5
BORINGNESS: 3

PARENTAL GUIDANCE
Violence & Gore: 8.5
Sex & Nudity: 6
Drugs & Profanity: 4
Intensity & Horror: 5

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