The Devil's Rock (2011)

Dir: Paul Campion

The screenwriters of The Devil's Rock obviously did some interesting research on both witch trials in the Channel Islands and the Nazi occupation there many years later. There's a good idea somewhere in combining these two elements and having occult-obsessed Nazis on Guernsey messing with ancient grimoire and summoning a demon. Unfortunately, no one bothered to actually learn screenwriting technique. The script is an unstructured, leaden-paced mess devoid of characterisation and crammed with clunky dialogue that's heavy on exposition, low on sounding remotely natural and never tells us anything about the two leads beyond clichéd shortcuts and signposts (ie: "here's your cue to feel sorry for this guy because he has a dead wife"). It's never a good thing when there's more meat on the bones of the skinned corpses that litter the set than there is on the actual living characters. It's a pity because the acting and the (prosthetic) special effects are both way above average for this kind of low-budget product but the fact I'm even thinking of it as "product" kind of says it all. *