The Devil's Business (2012)

Admirable film.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Years ago, the BBC in the UK used to screen new adaptations of familiar ghost stories written by leading authors of the past.These ghost stories were screened every Christmas and usually lasted anything from 30 minutes to an hour.The Devil's Business reminded me of those old BBC programmes. It was well-acted and scary in parts, with a very creepy ending. And like the BBC's output, the cast was limited to a few players.Basically the plot revolves around a gangster called Bruno who hires two hit-men, a seasoned veteran and a young man, to kill off another man who apparently lives alone.But things are not all as they first appear. And who is that little boy lurking in the dark, dark cellar? Black magic and bumps in the night are abound.Worth a rental or purchase of this DVD. Perfect for Christmas. Don't forget to keep the lights switched on.

The Devil's Business just came across as an extremely low budget made-for-TV movie. It was heavily dependent on the conversation between just 2 people for the majority of the movie duration. In order to carry that sort of setup off you're going to need some top quality acting and while the acting was occasionally decent in this movie, it was also sometimes below average.Both Billy Clarke and Jonathan Hansler gave decent performances for the most part but Jack Gordon couldn't really match them for most of his on-screen time, although there was one scene where he demonstrated his true capability and that just about saved his credibility. Perhaps the scripting for his character was part of the problem. All the actors showed promise but they really needed more time and more takes to film the scenes perfectly. I assume either the budget didn't allow them to do this, or the director didn't spot the potential for improvement.The writing overall was good and could even be considered the stand-out feature, it's just a shame that the budget couldn't be stretched considerably to make this into a real film and bring out the writing with cut-scenes and great cinematography. Instead, nearly all the action takes place in a darkly-lit small house somewhere in England. As a result, the visual imagery is just dull and boring for most of the movie and it gets tiresome rather quickly.The production value was just a notch above the sort of movie a student might make at college or university, it was just so low that it was almost filmed like an episode of some British television show from the 80's, just sadly not with the same sort of entertainment value.All the actors had some passion to their work, the writing was decent, the direction, while flawed, showed promise. But as a complete package, a fairly terrible movie that I just can't recommend. Maybe with a bigger budget it could have been a totally different story..

Two hit men arrive at a house under instruction to kill the guy who lives there. They sit around talking waiting for him to get home, one of 'em goes for a Pooh just as he gets back. Timing, eh?The cast, all four of them, are very good, especially Billy Clarke as Pinner, the elder, experienced hit-man. His unblinking 10 minute monologue is flipping ace, a great, weighty centrepoint of the film. The majority of the runtime is the verbal exchange between the two hit men, there is gore and jump scares but they're not over used and the script will hold your attention as it creates a nice creeping tension.The only weak point is the very end of the film, without giving anything away, it gets, we thought, a little silly. It's a let-down, but a forgivable one as the hour leading up to it was so enjoyable and well made.Well worth a purchase/rental!

A sure thing in cinema is rarely just that, especially in horror films. This is the case in The Devil's Business, in which veteran hit-man Mr. Pinner and his greenhorn associate Cully wait in the home of a target due to arrive later after attending an opera, Mr. Kist. It seems easy enough, but after the discovery of a devil worship altar in a shed things start to go pretty pear shaped and pretty soon the night is one of terror. I'm not usually drawn to horror films with criminal protagonists as the nature of their work immediately puts them at a remove from my natural sympathies. However writer/director Sean Hogan conducts things with great skill, drawing inspiration from theatre to make things instantly compelling. Pinter's The Dumb Waiter was apparently a source and the characters of Mr. Pinner and Cully come out and grow from their very first exchange of dialogue, on the one hand we have the old master, wise, cautious and with little time for any consideration other than making things go absolutely smoothly, and on the other the young man, the thug in training who tries to talk the talk but constantly reveals his inexperience. Billy Clarke is great as Mr Pinner, sharp, sarcastic and assured while Jack Gordon is equally good as Cully, clumsy, curious and eager he brings a naive likability to a role which in the wrong hands could grate. They share fine chemistry and so as events get out of control an impressive level of pathos emerges along with the suspense, one genuinely hopes these two will get away OK. Rounding things out Jonathan Hansler is suavely sinister as the classy Mr. Kist, while Harry Miller makes for a solid old school boss. The film makes good use of shadow and darkness, with good use of eerie blue twilight as well as rich red, and calm and controlled camera lets the actors and dialogue shine whilst milking the uneasy setting, a highlight scene involving Mr. Pinner recounting a scary story as the camera moves slowly on his increasingly strained face, much like watching an intense monologue from the front row of a theatre. Some may find the dialogue a bit overwritten but I really appreciated it, I thought it great to see a film where the writing is so integral. Towards the end things do get a little out of control with traditional grue and madness that doesn't sit so well with what has gone before but on the other hand its still pretty unnerving and it does bring a certain needed release, without sacrificing too much power. Basically I thought this was pretty excellent, highly recommended if you can dig horror with a slow burning fuse and lots of talk.