Directed By Nathan Frankowski

Starring – Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Eveline Hall

The Plot – A powerful biotech company has breakthrough technology allowing them to clone history’s most influential people with just a few fragments of DNA. Behind this company is a cabal of Satanists that steals the shroud of Christ putting them in possession of Jesus’ DNA. The clone will serve as the ultimate offering to the devil. Archangel Michael comes to earth and will stop at nothing to end the devil’s conspiracy

Rated R for strong violent content, some gore and adult language

The Devil Conspiracy – Official Trailer (2022) Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Joe Anderson – YouTube

POSITIVES

One of the reasons I don’t take too much stock in marketing trailers is because they’re often a poor representation of the material, and this couldn’t be truer than in “The Devil Conspiracy”, a movie that initially looked like religious propaganda, before becoming one of the most insane R-rated experiences of January in recent memory. That’s not to say that it’s a great or even good film, but what it does succeed on are the elements of creativity inside of its vast world-building, thick atmospheric dread in direction from Frankowski, and accentuating emphasis towards the coveted R-rating, which give it a uniquely unrelenting vibe throughout the experience. On the subject of the plot, the film cleverly combines science and religion in ways that permeate effectively throughout the war being waged before our very eyes, doing so without alienating one demographic or the other, using the bible as a precursor to an inevitably bigger war with higher stakes that will be waged on Earth in the coming days. As for direction, this is my second experience with Frankowski, after 2012’s “To Write Love on Her Arms”, and with the vast expansion in his capabilities from that intimately warm and tender film, Nathan not only manages to embrace a vivacious stylistic pallet with lots of powerfully complex imagery, but also never allows the tremendous stakes and scale of the setting to ever escape his capable hands, in turn balancing the supernatural entities with a rich combination of practical and simulated effects work that seems to consistently know its place. Last but not least, the carnage candy here is devilishly delicious, feeling like a director’s cut of devastation that is often reserved for home releases, but here feels right at home with the branding of its indulgences splashing consistently across the big screen, with detailed sound designs and make-up work painting possession among the character aggressions.

NEGATIVES

Where “The Devil Conspiracy” does end up trailing off in the extent of its execution is in the consistency of its editing techniques, which ultimately craft a screenplay with a complete absence of building momentum or even urgency to the plight of the respective characters. While I do credit screenwriter Ed Alan for assembling enough fascinating ideas and ambitious directions to his very first screenplay, the timing of the scenes and sequences are a bit long-winded, with stock dialogue and various plot holes continuously overwhelming the occasion and deducing the occasion towards feeling tedious the longer it persists down its 106-minute run time. Simple aspects about Saint Michael and his abilities are not only never thoroughly explained, but they’re never even exploited beyond a momentary plot device, in that they work sometimes but not others, for what I can only interpret is because the conflict requires them not to. In addition to this, the acting from the collective ensemble is void of the kind of commitment and emotional range needed to sell the magnitude of their internal anguish and external torture, especially in the case of Doyle, who is about as boring of an action star as I can remember over my thirteen years analyzing films. To be fair, Orr-Ewing is slightly better, especially when the air of her transformation becomes apparent with some accommodating practical effects conveying her suffering, but she’s given so little backstory and corresponding personality to properly invest in her conflict, leaving little from the performances to combat the complete lack of intrigue that plagued the experience. Finally, while most of the technical elements are effectively rendered throughout the aforementioned atmospheric dread that Frankowski imbeds to the engagement, the musical score is dully repetitive in ways that negatively worked against the sequences they accommodated, instead of accentuated them. For the first half of the movie, it’s the same ten second one-note strumming that gets old by the third scene of the film, but for the bigger ambitious sequences of decorated war, the budget feels influential, omitting the thunderous orchestral achievements that could easily transcribe escapism in the element, but instead underwhelm with uninspiring compositions that lack diversity in feeding into different moments at different emotional ranges throughout.

OVERALL
“The Devil Conspiracy” isn’t half as bad as the marketing initially entailed, but it’s a couple of vital elements shy of being worthy of its big screen captivity. Through Nathan Frankowski’s expressive visuals and thick atmospheric ambiance, the film finds an inspiration of artistic merit beneath all of the ensuing R-rated madness, but its sauntered storytelling is often subdued by a complete lack of building momentum that damns it to the darkness, leaving it spoiled by speculation that plagues most conspiracies.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-