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 "The Devonsville Terror" is an okay offering from the witch-hunting subcategory of horror movies. Some moderately inventive death scenes are shown almost right off the bat, and Donald Pleasence is a big boost to just about any horror cast. In addition, all of this takes place in a cold, autumnal New England setting, which is appropriate for this kind of movie. There's even a memorable scene where Pleasence pulls out some maggots out of his deep wound due to an ongoing curse. However, there are some things which downgrade this movie from "potential classic" to merely "okay". The plot progresses a little like how a student might answer a big essay question for an English exam. At first, it moves slowly and deliberately, spending a little too much time tending to the details, but during the final few minutes, everything is rushed. It's as though someone has told the director, "You only have five minutes left to finish this." Then the director, realizing that he's only 70% finished, gets into a panic and frantically tries to wrap up everything. Of course, a lot does happen in this short amount of time, but none of it is as carefully thought out as the earlier parts. No, at this point, you are treated to a witch-burning climax which shamelessly steals from the scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" where the Nazis are zapped and reduced to German goop. The only major difference between the two scenes is that it takes place in the woods and superstitous villagers are substituted for the Nazis. Compounding the problem is the fact that the witch looks silly by shooting dashes of light from her eyes at odd angles, and these deadly dashes move slowly enough to be easily avoided (kind of like those laser beams you might find in old video games). At least "Raiders of the Lost Ark" made its massacre scene look more convincing by having the Ark scatter lightning instead. Despite the unfortunate conclusion, "The Devonsville Terror" is still passable as a horror movie. |
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QUARTER BY QUARTER ANALYSIS OF MOVIE
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OVERALL RATING
** NOTE: The more dots, the better it is. 12 dots indicates a masterpiece while no dots means it's a "disasterpiece." ** |
    
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The Worm-Hole Reviews are written by Matt Barnes.