The Good Things Devils Do (Movie Review)

PLOT: Gangsters bust into a suburban home to find that the inhabitants are already being attacked by a vampire.

REVIEW: The feature debut of writer/director Jess Norvisgaard, THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO (pick up a copy HERE) is a movie that feels like it didn't reach its true potential. While it has a solid set-up to build a horror movie on, it didn't turn out to be as fun as it could have been, despite having an abundance of gore and a quirky sense of humor. This is a situation where the attempts at humor didn't quite work for me – instead of laughing, my reaction to the intentionally humorous moments and lines was usually to think to myself, "Oh, that was supposed to be funny."

The strongest example of the movie not reaching its potential is in the way it handles cast members / genre icons Kane Hodder and Linnea Quigley. It casts Hodder in the role of a foul-mouthed, homicidal maniac (whose intense behavior does, admittedly, make it tougher to notice the humor) then removes him from the action as quickly as possible. Then it gives Quigley the chance to play an awesome looking, blood-soaked vampire – somewhat reminiscent of her possessed character in NIGHT OF THE DEMONS – and doesn't give her much to do. These choices could have been budgetary, it's understandable if the production couldn't afford to have Hodder and Quigley on set as much as they would have liked, but the end result makes it feel like the movie was teasing viewers with ideas they'll want to see developed further.

The film does have the perfect setting – it takes place in a suburban neighborhood on Halloween, with trick-or-treaters roaming the streets. Melvin (David Rucker III) likes to entertain the local kids with creepy stories and the gruesome items he's collecting for his Museum of the Macabre, and in the opening scene he gets a cool new delivery: a crate containing the skeletal remains of a woman who was said to be cursed. Problem is, she was cursed with vampirism and comes back to flesh-and-blood life when Melvin's wife Louisie (Quigley) unknowingly removes a stake from her heart. Just as this vampire, called Masquerade and played by Veronika Stoykova, rises from her crate in Melvin and Louisie's home and goes on the attack, the front door is kicked open by a trio of gangsters on a mission to retrieve some loot.

Those gangsters are Richard (Bill Oberst Jr.), who is looking to retire from crime after this job; Richard's partner-in-crime / daughter Mouse (Mary Katherine O'Donnell); and aforementioned madman Percy (Hodder), who has been told to make sure Richard and Mouse are both retired by murdering them at the end of the night. So now Melvin, Louisie, and the gangsters – along with Louisie's daughter Caroline (Kelley Wilson Robinson), who is almost 40 but dresses and acts like a dimwitted teenager – are trapped together in a fight against Masquerade.

The gangster storyline is one aspect of THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO that brought down my overall enjoyment a bit, as it brings up questions that don't get satisfying answers. It doesn't seem like Melvin is involved with criminal endeavors, so why were the gangsters sent to his house? Is it bad luck, and an address was chosen at random? If this was just a set-up so Percy could kill Richard and Mouse, why does Percy believe the money is in Melvin's house? I really don't know what was going on with this part of the story, Norvisgaard didn't make it clear as far as I'm concerned.

The "trapped in the house by a vampire" scenario fills most of the film's 80 minute running time, but the action never gets as exciting as it could have, or as exciting as most viewers will probably be hoping for. The highlight comes when Richard tapes a knife to one of Mouse's hands and a cleaver to the other. She gets to use them, but I was left wishing she could have had the chance to use them more. That's THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO in a nutshell: it's great at set-ups, but the payoffs will leave you wanting more.

There's some dodgy acting in the midst of all this, but also the opportunity to see icons and genre regulars at work once again. The gore effects look great, and it's always nice to watch a horror movie that has some Halloween atmosphere to it. I had a fine viewing experience sitting through THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO, but if the elements that were in place here had been handled just slightly differently, it could have been more entertaining.

THE GOOD THINGS DEVILS DO is available on Digital, DVD, and Blu-ray, courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.