Ben
(Craig Hall) and Joe (Karlos Drinkwater) are two Kiwi soldiers who sneak onto
the beach at Normandy to make preparations on the eve of D-Day. While scouring the underground tunnels, they
discover many German corpses and stumble upon a cult of Nazis who are ready to
unleash a demon on the world. Ben also
finds his wife (Gina Valera) chained up in the catacombs. The only problem, she’s been dead for a few
years.
Nazi
horror is a durable genre. I’m not saying
it always works, but the horrors-of-war motif certainly has a kick to it. I mean, ever since Raiders of the Lost Ark,
filmmakers have been combining Nazis and the occult to varying degrees of
success (there’s even a Lost Ark reference here). The Devil’s Rock is among the middle rungs of
the ladder.
The
set-up had potential. However, after the
soldiers make their way into the bunker it becomes one of those slow burn deals. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the burn
hadn’t been so damned slow. (Things get
awfully talky in the middle section.) Director
Paul Campion (who got his start at Weta Workshop) does a good job stretching out
the low budget (filming in a dark catacomb with only a handful of actors will
do that), but he ultimately can’t pull it off.
Another
problem is Valera’s performance. She’s
just a little too wholesome to be an effective temptress. She fares slightly better when playing the
red-faced demon. (She kind of looks like
something Darkness from Legend would’ve saw on Demon Tinder and immediately swiped
right on.) Without a sizzling central
performance, The Devil’s Rock sort of crumbles.
If
anything, the gore is solid. Even if the
film isn’t entirely successful, the red stuff flies freely. I mean any movie in which a guy’s guts are
collected off the floor with a shovel is OK by me.
AKA: Nazi Bitch:
War is Horror.
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