Everyone who reads this webzine already know that H.P.Lovecraft is my favorite horror author of all times. I also love works of so called Lovecraftian Circle, meaning writers who were his friends or contemporaries and those who continued his cosmic horror style in their short stories and novels. Well, but I also love horror movies. And I love when it has that Lovecraftian cosmic horror vibe. Well, The Devil Below didn’t disappoint me. The story evolves around group of five explorers with leader Arianne who are looking for town called Shookum Hills which disappeared in the seventies with thousand miners and inhabitants. Legend says that they were digging and drilling hole to Hell like the one in Siberia and then something happened with underground fires burning still to this day. As it usually is, our heroes do not take local people warnings to their brains, find the lost city and then troubles start when they unleash something sinister from under the earth, something set on replacing humanity with other inhabitants. This is action packed sinister horror movie with lots of running, parts of mock found footage parts and nightvision, the only thing that lightly disappointed me was the finale under earth in the caves which was somehow to psychodelic and not directed and filmed to my taste, could have been better done, but I think that they did it on purpose because they were hiding lack of money for better prosthetic or CGI effects on monsters. The ending is satisfying and somehow bleak, just how I like it. Actors are so-so. Veteran Will Patton who plays local chief of security and ex miner looks somehow confused maybe due to lack in this character script development. Other young actors are Alicia Sanz as Arianne, main character, known for her tv roles in ‘El Cid’ and ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ tv series. She is somehow too wooden and not so convincing. Others like Adan Canto or Chinaza Uche are too thin, so the acting is not so good as it could have been. The movie was directed by Bradley Parker who worked on visual effects on ‘Ad Astra’ and ‘Loki’, also being assistant director of second unit on ‘The Batman’ and ‘War For The Planet Of The Apes’ and directed ‘Chernobyl Diaries’ which was a fine movie to my taste. Story is written by Stefan Jaworski and Eric Scherbarth. This is an average movie by some standards, but I loved it and I love Lovecraftian cosmic horror themes, so I give maybe bigger rate it deserved.

7/10