Rainy weekend afternoons were made for monster flicks. That’s what I was thinking when I settled on The Devil Below. I was also thinking, “this is free on Amazon Prime.” The best word I can think to describe it is lackluster. Sometimes I’ll see a movie and a couple weeks later will have trouble remembering what it was about without severe prompting. This may fall into that category. We’ll see. In any case, Arianne—is she Ariadne?—researches and leads groups to inaccessible locations for a fee. She can find anywhere. A group of “scientists” want to find a coal mine in Kentucky that caught fire (like Centralia), and explore it for possible high-grade anthracite. What they don’t know is that monsters live in the mine and they escape from time to time. The former mine owner has formed a ragtag group of helpers who keep the monsters at bay. They don’t ask for help.
So far, nothing really stands out. What makes this movie worth discussing is the dialog about religion and science that the scientists have. Unfortunately the writing is poor and that means the dialog isn’t very sophisticated. For example, one of the geologists argues that intelligent design isn’t opposed to science. What said scientist doesn’t know is that intelligent design was intentionally invented by creationists as an alternative to science. Its roots are clear and unambiguous. This member of the team doesn’t believe they should really be doing this—the mine is behind an electrified fence and the locals keep trying to chase them off. And he’s talking about God while there’s, well, devils below.
It’s never really explained why these creatures are considered devils, unless they live close to “Hell,” being underground and all. We don’t get many clear views of these monsters but they eat what they can get, which makes you wonder what they survived on before miners showed up on the menu. In the end, all the scientists get eaten—it turns out that their leader was actually working for big industry, not a university, as he’d claimed—and you don’t feel too bad for them. Arianne survives and decides to stay with the locals to fight the monsters. There’s some faith talk among them as well, which makes me wonder if the writers maybe had a hidden agenda. Although the article does score a Wikipedia article, many of those involved, including the writer and the star, don’t have their own entries. And who has the time to mine the internet for more answers? There you might find the devil below, I suppose.