2/10
Have been looking forward to this but doesn't deliver...at all
23 February 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I read about this film back when it was called "The Unexplained Disappearance of Karla Marks." Now titled "The Devil's Well" it suffers from poor pacing, like of a developed mythology and a really horrendous ending.

The opening is people talking about what happened to Karla and most of the characters are trying to push a spooky, paranormal explanation, but since we have no idea of the circumstances surrounding her vanishing, it sounds more like the actors pushing the idea, not the plot itself. And it goes on much too long, so there's no tension.

Then it jumps a year later and a paranormal group is going to investigate what happened. Now, that fine--but again, all we know from the police, news reports, etc. is that she disappeared. An unsolved crime, but they keep blaming the spooks. Where the film falls apart is they spend so little time on the mythology. Supposedly there's a well in a cellar of a home built in the 1700s. A young girl jumped to her death in the well. Okay. And? And? That's about it. It's not like it happened every 50 years or so. Just once. Yet someone, it's called the devil's well and the property (an old text tile mill) is haunted. Really? Based on that? When the camera crew visits the town, they talk to residents a la BLAIR WITCH. But while BLAIR used these interviews to expand on the mythology, these interviews lead no where. "Don't go there--it's an unholy place!" "My friend felt sick to his stomach but when he went outside, he felt better." That's about all we get.

The rest of the film is found footage based on their investigation. There is an eerie soundtrack added to the footage, which is really annoying unless the music was playing during the investigation. The acting throughout is okay, but really, the film is terribly padded. There are a couple, "OMG! Did you see that?" but even though they say they caught on camera other people in the building, we're never shown anything. The actors just wander in the darkness, chatting with one another so we get their backstories. But we don't care.

And then (SPOILERS) Karla shows up at the well, dazed and confused. Then some thugs show up wearing silly "scary" masks (just for us, the audience) and kill everyone. Then Karla and the thugs all hold hands around the well, ready to serve him. Hmmm. Really? Why'd the little girl jump in the well back in the 1700s? She was never found again so if Karla is like the little girl, why is Karla found again and now part of the group of well wishers? None of this makes sense, the film is not at all scary, and it makes you wonder why they didn't bother to tie in the mythology with the disappearance of Karla. Skip it.
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