A horror that works best when it leaves you guessing
Bury the Devil | Review | Hope Madden
Bury the Devil is a solid, spooky little film from Adam O’Brien. The writer/director clearly knows his way around a haunted atmosphere. Long takes and a prowling camera give the whole thing an uneasy, watchful quality. The location is stunning. Ford steals scenes as Evelyn, gliding between wistful old woman and genuine menace. Martinez is grounded and believable. It’s a first night in a new home. Everything feels off in the right ways.
The structure does the heavy lifting. No flashbacks. No dates. Just the immediate present tense, keeping everything moving and surprising. That same structure creates problems too. The mythology feels incomplete. Gaps in the story leave you guessing at too much. The climax doesn’t land as a resolution. Pieces should fit into a puzzle. Instead, things feel a bit loose. It’s not enough to spoil the film, just enough to stop it from leaving a lasting mark. Still, if you want a haunted house movie that builds dread effectively, this one is worth your time.
Some films earn their slow burn. Others let the fire go out before the finale can catch.
Bury the Devil: Atmospheric Chills and Uneven Mythology
Things don’t often go well for live-in nurses in horror movies. Whether the caregiver is a loved one (Undertone, Relic, The Taking of Deborah Logan) or a professional (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, The Dark and the Wicked), the patient always seems to bring with them an additional presence.
So, I guess Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) only has herself to blame. If she’d watched more horror, she might have known that her latest gig in a gorgeous lakeside home with Evelyn (Dawn Ford) would take more from her than her time and compassion.
Writer/director Adam O’Brien’s Bury the Devil creates a great, spooky atmosphere. Long takes and a prowling camera give the film a haunted quality, and O’Brien makes the most of his limited budget with a small but talented cast and this stunning location.
Ford takes advantages of the opportunities afforded her, gliding from wistful old woman to confused dementia sufferer to something sinister and back with ease. She commands the screen as patients in these films rarely do.
Likewise, Martinez carves out a believable character—not the martyr or conniver, just a working nurse on her first night in a new home.
The writing is occasionally pushy, trying too hard to wedge information into conversations without forced exposition. We exist only in the present tense. There are no flashbacks or days marked on the screen to help us along. Instead, O’Brien drops us into Julia’s first night and possibly Dawn’s last. It’s a structure that keeps the film moving and surprising, but it doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity to expand the story.
The gaps in the mythology weaken the climax. What you don’t know and couldn’t possibly understand without some guidance leaves you guessing at too much. That guesswork keeps the finale from feeling like a resolution, like pieces finally fit into a puzzle. It’s not enough to ruin the movie, but it’s enough to keep it from leaving a mark.
If the mythology were any more confusing, you would half expect Evelyn to demand a sequel that explains everything. Sometimes a creepy old woman is just a creepy old woman. Bury the Devil does atmosphere well enough that a muddled finale only stings because the rest worked so hard to get you there. If O’Brien tightens the storytelling next time, he might have something special. Until then, this one is worth a watch for the chills it delivers. Just do not expect a tidy ending.
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