If you like your thrillers drenched in Midwestern Gothic sleaze, heaped with a generous helping
of violence, and served with a side of the extra weird, then get ready: The Devil All
the Time is on the way.
The new thriller from director Antonio Campos, based on the Donald Ray Pollock novel of the
same name, is a sordid, multi-generational tale that exposes the depravity lurking just
under the surface of the American heartland.
The Devil All the Time goes to some unexpected places, and each twist and turn increases
the tension exponentially.
Go in blind if you can, but make sure to steel yourself first.
In the world of The Devil All the Time, heroes are hard to come by.
The Devil All the Time may be set in small towns, but it's not a small story.
It takes place over decades and features numerous characters, all of whom are connected by blood
and odd twists of fate.
As a crime thriller, The Devil All the Time pulls out all the stops: Bizarre religious
rituals.
Serial killers.
Human sacrifice.
Spider-eating priests.
Yup, The Devil All the Time has it all.
"Excuse me, preacher.
You got time for a sinner?"
At the center of it all is Arvin Russell, the teenage orphan who ties all these different
plot threads together.
The Devil All the Time is messy and brutal in all the right ways, and it's not afraid
to ask the hard questions.
Its characters struggle with faith and poverty and the lingering effects of trauma.
It's a dark story, but it's a powerful one.
Just one warning: After watching, you'll never look at southern Ohio quite the same way again.
You probably know Tom Holland best as Spider-Man, and while The Devil All the Time is much,
much darker than Holland's superhero outings, it's easy to see some similarities between
Arvin Russell and Peter Parker.
Like Peter, Arvin is an orphan who's been sent to live with his relatives.
He doesn't like bullies, and always fights for the little guy.
Most importantly, though, Arvin is driven to do the right thing, even when it comes
at a huge personal cost.
There aren't many genuinely decent people in The Devil All the Time, but Arvin is certainly
one of them.
Holland is joined in by actor Sebastian Stan, a.k.a. Marvel's Winter Soldier.
If you only know Stan from his MCU appearances, get ready for a big surprise.
Lee Bodecker might be the local sheriff, but he's as crooked as they come.
And finally there's Robert Pattinson.
He's previously starred in The King and The Lighthouse, and is set to blow minds as The
Batman.
But in The Devil All the Time, he plays a real monster - a truly odious character named
Reverend Preston Teagardin.
In fact, he may just be the most vile person in the movie - and given The Devil All the
Time's lineup of reprehensible characters, that's saying something.
Bill Skarsgard, who scared everyone so much as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It and its
sequel, plays Arvin's father Willard, who turns to a bizarre form of Christianity when
Arvin's mother Charlotte falls ill.
In addition, veteran character actor Jason Clarke plays Carl Henderson, a photographer
who roams the country looking for his next subjects.
By his side, you'll find his wife Sandy, portrayed in The Devil All the Time by Riley Keough,
who earned a Golden Globe nomination for her turn in The Girlfriend Experience, and who
has appeared in everything from Mad Max: Fury Road to cult favorite Under the Silver Lake.
She also made memorable splashes in Earthquake Bird, Logan Lucky, and Hold the Dark, to name
just a few more.
Finally, Harry Melling, who earned raves for his role in the Coen Brothers' Ballad of Buster
Scruggs follows up his villainous turn in the Charlize Theron-led action flick The Old
Guard as The Devil All the Time's Roy Laferty, a preacher whose life takes a turn for the
worse when his zeal leads him astray.
Sharp Objects' Eliza Scanlen plays Lenora, Arvin's pious foster sister, while Alice in
Wonderland star and indie film sensation Mia Wasikowska appears as her poor, tragic mother
Helen.
In other words?
This movie has one hell of a cast.
Looking at director Antonio Campos' filmography, it's easy to draw a straight line from his
previous projects to The Devil All the Time.
His first movie, Afterschool, is about a boarding school student who accidentally captures the
deaths of two of his classmates on camera, and the creeping sense of paranoia that quickly
settles over the school.
His second, Simon Killer, explores the relationship between a French prostitute and an American
tourist who displays increasingly sociopathic tendencies.
Christine, Campos' third movie, tells the real-life story of Christine Chubbuck, a TV
reporter who shot herself on live television.
Even Campos' television work fits that pattern.
The Punisher episode "Cold Steel" might be a Marvel project, but it's still about a disillusioned
soldier-turned-vigilante who kills without remorse.
And The Sinner, of which Campos directed a number of episodes, is a pitch-black crime
drama that explores trauma and guilt, two themes that pop up in The Devil All the Time
quite often.
Of course, The Devil All the Time has a much bigger scope than anything that Campos has
made before, but the similarities are pretty clear.
Like The Devil All the Time, Campos' previous work mashes up sex and crime and violence,
features characters that are emotionally cut off from the bigger world, and are filmed
with aggressive, unnerving style.
If you liked Donald Ray Pollock's novel, then don't worry.
The Devil All the Time couldn't be in better hands.
Thanks for watching.
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