I’m going to be honest when Valkor gave me this film I had never heard of it. Now I know why. The Devil's Ground (The Cycle) directed by Michael Bafaro is an unremarkable little horror flick that while not being awful isn’t really great either. Hence it kinda gets lost in movie limbo.. The story is about Carrie (Daryl Hannah) a woman who is driving the route her ex flame did when last she heard from him. She stops at a gas station with a tall weird looking attendant who freaks her out. She leaves and encounters a girl in the middle of the road bloody and in obvious fright. Carrie brings the terrified young woman into the car, and tries to get the girl to tell her what’s going on.
Amy (the terrified girl played by Leah Gibson) eventually warms up to Carrie, and tell us her story. Amy, along with four other environmentalist students (two dudes and two chicks which will go by the names of douche guy, nice guy, chick one and chick two for the rest of the review), go up to the country hoping to score an A in there ecology class. There professor claims that a mine is being constructed around the site of an Indian burial site, and all they have to do is find evidence of the burial site so they can stop the mine form being made. While the five students are driving up to the site, they stop and an old run down gas station. The kids come out and laugh a bit (with the exception of Amy) at the attendant a handless man Billy (Daniel Probert) and his son. Amy stands up for Billy and he gets all hard for her. Going around to the back of the gas station Amy sees a chain leading into a garage. The chain is moving around and making grunts and whatnot. Billy finds her checking out chain in a box and shoos her away. Billy warns them away from the area they’re going to. Ooohhh Aaaaaahhh scary place…
The mystery mobile (aka the five wannabe eco terrorists aka Amy and fellow students) gets to the site and decides they’ll start tomorrow as it’s late already. The douche guy is screwing one of the girls and all of the sudden the van is rocked. They all assume it’s Billy handless screwing with them. The next day they begin working, and come across buried remains. They continue working and come across more buried remains, but these ones are relatively fresh, not the ancient remains they were looking for. UH OH!!! Marking down the area on a map, so they can bring the police to the exact spot for evidence, they head back to the van for the night, and someone’s in it. And so begins the murder and mayhem. Hog, that’s the killer and I swear that’s what his name is in the credits, (Twan Holliday) runs down the chick number one, and those pesky kids make a run for it. The chick number two falls predictably, and the douche guys decides screw it, I’m better off on my own, leaves her there, and splits off from the group. Hog basically systematically kills them off until it’s just Amy and nice guy. Nice guy falls into a pit, and he urges her to go and talk to Billy as he warned them away from there, and because of that might be inclined to help them.
So Amy treks through he woods and finally gets to Billy’s garage. She tells Billy everything that happened, and Billy reveals that Hog is actually Billy’s brother Tobey. He goes on to say that everyone in that area is born with a deformity and Tobey is basically slow and full of rage. To get back at everyone who makes fun of them they kill people. Something like that. Like I said forgettable. Amy meanwhile conceals the map in an ice cream fridge. She slides it between the plastic covering and fridge top while Billy is monologueing. Tobey comes back and Billy berates him for leaving Amy and nice guy alive, and not getting the map. Tobey leaves to finish off nice guy, and Billy turns back around to finish of Amy. Amy gets away and goes to find Tobey.
We cut back to Carrie and Amy in the car, and Carrie saying the description of Hog fits the freaky gas attendant from before perfectly. Now we’re up to speed. However everything is not as it seems, and there’s still a few surprises left.
The Good:
-Entertaining and kept me interested the entire time.
The Bad:
-Nothing really bad about this movie. No nudity?? That’s about it. Horror movies usually have some nudity. This one didn’t have any. I’m stretching here cause I really can’t find anything bad to say about this movie.
The Ugly:
-N/A
The Verdict:
The Devil's Ground isn’t bad. It’s not great. But it IS entertaining and interesting. I wasn’t expecting that. I fully expected this to be a crap movie, but was pleasantly surprised. It gets a solid 3 of 5. Loses two points simply because while entertaining and interesting, it is a forgettable movie. Nothing spectacularly good about it. It’s just one of those movies you can watch enjoy and forget about.