The Devil’s Child – review

Director: David Bohorquez

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

That this is a vampire film might be debated but I think it offered enough tropes to make us able to class it (even if we don’t get actual blood drinking). We do also get a(n accidental) preview of an aspect of what Eggers later would do with Nosferatu. It is a Columbian film, but it is insinuated it is set in the US and it is shot in English language.

in the orphanage

The film looks lovely but its desire to make a narrative space for viewer interpretation possibly leads it to obscure itself too much. It starts with a young girl in tears as she is teased (in an orphanage we hear) and at one point she has “weirdo” drawn on her head. We then get an intertitle that says, “Diavlo. Extraordinary species with advanced mental abilities. Predators of the human race. Considered extinct since the late 19th century.” Diavlo was the original film title.

uncanny

A car follows a road, mist gives an air of the uncanny as it approaches woodland. In the car Sara (Alison Sullivan) and Maria (Francisca Estevez) are taking their friend Cherry (Maria Camila Perez) to a new job – I think an additional job, for a short period of time, rather than a permanent position. She is a nurse and has a hospital job and looking after Philip Halliwell (Germán Naranjo), which is what she is doing, is whilst his daughter Naomi (Fiona Horsey) is away.

met by Dwayne

She is picked up by the Halliwell’s handyman Dwayne (Marvens Passiano) just before the woods and they drive through the woods. Cherry suggests stopping for a cold dink but Dwayne says there are no places to stop – offering a sense of isolation. By the time they arrive Cherry has been sleeping and the house is a huge Gothic pile. Naomi is very stern and, after questioning Cherry, explains that her father has a skin condition and she must only use an oil lamp in his room and never open the curtains.

fangs

So, the sunlight is our first real trope and the fact that his care seems to consist of hooking up bags of blood is the second. However he does take the blood intravenously. We also see his eyes turn milky white (as do Naomi’s) and he communicates in this state telepathically – he shows Naomi violent imagery including him having a maw of fangs. He uses this telepathy to influence Cherry’s dreams, including seducing her with a younger version of himself (Juan Andrés Jiménez). Cherry is the girl in the orphanage and starts remembering the bullying she was subjected to and also seeing things (later we discover she used to see things as a child).

Germán Naranjo as Halliwell

Later she finds a portrait of a woman wearing the same necklace she wears (and she stated was something belonging to her mother). Dwayne suggests the portrait is of Violet, Halliwell’s sister. So, it seems she is of the family and, one assumes, a Diavlo – we certainly see her absent mindedly taste some blood that has dripped from a bag. I mentioned Eggers and, whilst this pre-dates it, we can see Halliwell’s hands seem monstrous with big thick nails, but he is also covered in sores (presumably bed sores) and it makes him look a bit like the decayed Orlok might look. This pre-dated style seems all the more so when his emaciated form tries to rape Cherry and therefore gave this an accidental and unintentional intertextual feel.

Fiona Horsey as Naomi

The film, however, does not overly explain things and this, along with its slow pace, may be off-putting to many. The arrival of Cherry’s friends at the house seemed misplaced and more to add some menace than to move the plot. A young boy that Cherry sees seems to be a projection of the future (Halliwell is said to have been known as a psychic – using his Diavlo powers undoubtedly) but it isn’t certain. An occult tome adds an air of mystery but is looked at once and is not translated for the viewer or character. As said, the pace is pretty slow but the photography stands out and the gothic atmosphere is certainly there. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

DVD @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK