Movie Review: DEVON

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: November 8th, 2024 / 03:52 AM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Lauren Carlin, Steven Entienne, Rotisha Geter, Tara Rule, Hank Santos, Sabrina Aiezza, Xavier Aiezza, Zack Carpinello
Writer: Jenni Farley
Director: Jenni Farley
Distributor: Cineverse
Release Date: November 12, 2024 (digital, VOD)

DEVON was shot at Spring City’s Pennhurst Asylum, originally (per Wikipedia) an institution known as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic. It opened in 1918 and was closed in 1987. Mistreatment of patients resulted in the legal Pennhurst Doctrine.

These days, in reality, the establishment is used for “haunted house” tours and, in the case of DEVON, as the setting for a “found footage” horror movie.

DEVON writer/director Jenni Farley stages “expose” footage in which a host (Jackson Gray) gives us the story’s history of the site, which here was an in-patient hospital for children with mental and psychological handicaps (the host uses the R slur, which doesn’t seem meant to undercut his credibility). The place had a terrible reputation while open. Many children disappeared. The hospital is now closed and scheduled for demolition.

Two teens (Sabrina Aiezza, Xavier Aiezza) decide to explore the abandoned facility. First, they find viewable footage that we don’t see much of, but we hear children screaming. The teens then get quite a fright when a bedraggled, screaming woman runs out of the darkness at them.

This woman turns out to be Alison (Rotisha Geter), the apparent sole survivor of an excursion into the asylum three days earlier. We get clips of Alison talking to the police in an interrogation room. She says she doesn’t know why she was at the asylum in the first place, or how long she was there. This is interspersed with footage from “three days earlier.” She is in shock, miserable and still terrified.

As explained to us in the “three days earlier” material by expedition member William (Steven Entienne), he is one of a group of five who’ve been selected to explore the site with video cameras. The parents of Devon, an asylum patient who disappeared twenty years ago, have offered a $100,000 – to be split five ways – if their selected team will seek out traces of the girl. The asylum is rumored to be haunted, of course.

None of the team members have met each other previously, and haven’t been given information about why any of them were selected. William is expansive, flamboyant, and cheerfully acknowledges that he’s doing this for the cash. Alison is tight-lipped about herself, but skeptical about the supernatural (from the flashforward clips, we know that her experiences have made her a believer). Carly (Lauren Carmichael) has been cut off financially by her parents, and is eager to prove that she can earn on her own. Kat (Tara Rule) wants to provide for her daughter; Jared (Hank Santos) hopes to help out his mom.

We also get black-and-white shots from cameras situated around the place, suggesting someone unknown is watching.

Filmmaker Farley utilizes the long corridors, forbidding doors, and cramped rooms of the location. The toys left behind are less creepy than outright sad, while the words and paintings on the wall are suitably ominous.

Farley is also good with having unnerving elements moving in the background, often with the main characters not noticing. While she never repeats the momentum of her first big jump scare, she maintains a level of tension throughout.

Also on the plus side, the characters sensibly wonder why Devon’s parents waited all this time to fund a search, as well as how they could care about their child let leave her in such a horrible place.

Finally, we do get answers to the set-up questions posed at the start, which is always a pleasure, especially since there are hints that don’t make things obvious.

But there are problems. First is the one that often plagues found footage features, which is there’s a certain point where we just don’t understand why these people would hang onto their cameras, no matter how they were instructed. They agree to stick together, only to run off alone on various pretexts, even though they don’t know where they’re going and have limited light sources.

The characters sometimes sound like they’re contestants on a reality TV show, conspiratorially speculating together about the motives of whoever is out of the room. This may be the result of filmmaker Farley’s time as “JWwow” on JERSEY SHORE, but it doesn’t sit quite right here.

There are also what are either miscalculations or actual errors. When William pulls scans of old newspaper articles about Devon up on his computer, one piece says she was born in 1986 and the other in 1987. We’re not sure if this is a clue or a production mistake. When William is looking at the article that says 1987 and tells his camera Devon was born in 1986, it seems like the latter, but we can’t be sure.

DEVON is moderately entertaining. Its visuals surpass its drama and horror, but since movies at this budget often can’t achieve the right look, that gives it some distinction.

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Great setting for found footage horror

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Article: Movie Review: DEVON

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