DEVOURED (2012)

Studio:       Gravitas Ventures
Director:    Greg Olliver
Writer:       Marc Landau
Producer:  Julie Buck, Marc Landau, Greg Olliver, Karim Raoul
Stars:     Marta Milans, Kara Jackson, Bruno Gunn, Tyler Hollinger, Luis Harris, Sal Rendino, David Conley, Amy Landon

Review Score:

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Summary:

A young immigrant struggling to earn money for her sick son comes to wonder if ghostly visions in the restaurant where she works may be affecting her mind.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

New York detectives Cruthers and Sullivan investigate the death of an El Salvadorian woman named Lourdes Alfaro at Raoul’s restaurant. While Sullivan searches downstairs, Cruthers uses Lourdes’ cell phone to call her mother. A Spanish-speaking officer translates that although they spoke regularly on the phone, her mother had not seen Lourdes since she left for New York to earn money for her sick son Oliver’s operation.

Flash-backward: Lourdes works as an occasional bartender and a graveyard shift cleaner at Raoul’s. All of the money she earns is sent back home to her mother in El Salvador to save for Oliver’s treatment. Lourdes is routinely harassed by head chef Billy as well as her manager Kristen. When alone, Lourdes has regular visions of ghosts haunting her and fantasizes about spending time with Oliver. Each time she calls back home to her mother, Lourdes has to practically beg to speak to her son.

Lourdes strikes up a friendship with a fireman named Frankie Callahan who works in the neighborhood. He stops in occasionally when Lourdes works alone and the two of them spend time getting to know one another.

Lourdes is propositioned in an upstairs room by a restaurant patron one evening. Lured by the amount of money in the man’s hand, Lourdes begrudgingly performs oral sex on him. She soon starts doing the same to other male patrons in an effort to earn cash for her son more quickly.

The strange waking nightmares and fantasies of Oliver continue, as does the abuse from Kristen and Billy. Lourdes continues to see Frankie occasionally, but also keeps turning tricks.

Having saved enough money, Lourdes is finally ready to quit. Billy tries molesting her one more time, but she assaults him and collects her things. On her way out, Lourdes becomes inexplicably trapped inside the restaurant. Frankie arrives and tries opening the door, but Lourdes sees something pulling him into the basement before she finds him dead. Lourdes tries escaping through an upstairs window as the ghosts pursue her, but the ghosts seemingly pull at her ankle. Lourdes falls down the restaurant’s spiral staircase and dies.

Back in the present, Detective Cruthers learns from Lourdes’ mother that Oliver actually died shortly after Lourdes left El Salvador, and Lourdes never recovered mentally from his death, refusing to believe it was true. Detective Sullivan discovers multiple bodies hidden in the basement. Flashbacks reveal that Lourdes was actually a serial killer, but her mind continued believing the fantasy she created regarding her son. Lourdes was stabbing her johns and robbing them. She also murdered Kristen, Billy, and Frankie before falling to her death.

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Review:

“Devoured” filmed in 2011, played sporadic theatrical screenings after a German premiere in 2012, saw its European DVD release in 2013, and finally landed stateside via VOD during the latter half of 2014.  When an independent horror film leaves a three-year-long trail of piecemeal exhibition, it is often an indicator of quality so low that no distributor is willing to afford it a timely worldwide commitment.  Yet in this instance, it is more likely a case of “Devoured” being so challenging to categorize with traditional expectations that marketing managers were probably stumped over how to sell it to a broad audience.

It’s not that “Devoured” is difficult to “get,” or that it is so far outside the norm as to completely defy description.  But it does bear a tonal quality that makes accurately articulating its strange ability to hold intrigue, despite a deliberately slow tempo, a task easier said than done.

Lourdes is an El Salvadorian transplant doing thankless labor in a New York restaurant so that she can send money back home for her sick son Oliver’s operation.  An average day for Lourdes includes a shower, a subway ride, a stop at the mailbox, and a host of trivial activities certain to try the patience of those in a hurry to see if this goes someplace, and where that might be exactly.

The restaurant manager throws daggers of disdain with her eyes while the head chef’s lustful leers are accompanied by shameless hands.  It remains unclear if Lourdes has actually committed some transgression to earn their enmity.  What is clear is that Lourdes is alone even when among others, and this isolated world mentally torments her in multiple ways.

Lourdes has waking nightmares of chalk-faced ghosts shambling in the shadows.  She compensates by escaping into fantasies of time spent with her son in less gloomy surroundings.  She falls under such a spell, as does the viewer, that borders delineating dream, imagination, memory, and reality crack as each scene melts into a cold portrait of Lourdes’ troubled psyche.

How literal are the black-eyed phantoms that only Lourdes can see?  What is Oliver’s unspecified illness and how might it play into the manifestations of her mind?  The uphill climb through Lourdes’ mostly mundane life crests in a “Usual Suspects”-style climax revealing how every sequence before that point does not tell the full story.  This turn of events has become a prime topic of discussion regarding “Devoured,” although to misappropriate Ralph Waldo Emerson, the quiet artistry of the film makes its meaning more about the journey than the destination.

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If Caity Lotz of "The Pact" had a Spanish sister, she would be Marta Milans of "Devoured."

The deeper appeal of “Devoured” is its cinematic illustration of an expatriate mother struggling for normalcy in a passively hostile environment.  As a mostly one-woman show, Marta Milans is outstanding as Lourdes, with a blank slate beauty that can take on shades of determination, heartbreak, anger, or frustration as called upon by her character.  She is the magnetic linchpin in how writer/director Greg Olliver maintains the movie’s mesmerizing atmosphere even when wading deep in montages of vegetable chopping and ambling down hallways.

Any remark about the film’s ability to hypnotize would be remiss with mentioning the soundtrack, credited as original music by Carly Paradis and music provided by Sencit Music.  The piano-centric themes beautifully complement Lyle Vincent’s cinematography and without a score this strong, “Devoured” would no doubt have a more challenging time conveying its mood.  The music suggests darkness without being melancholy, mystery without being over-orchestrated, and tension without being loud.  It is not quite horror, not quite drama, and not quite thriller, but somewhere touching all three, which is precisely the same indeterminate space occupied by the movie itself.

Up for argument is whether or not “Devoured” really needs all of the real estate it occupies.  In truth, it is a lead up and a payoff that would have dealt a fiercer blow as a half-hour “Twilight Zone” episode, or maybe a one-hour “Outer Limits.”  It doesn’t exactly drag, but 90 minutes strung along at a steadily subdued hum wanes interest enough that its impact is softened.  For some, it taxes focus enough to warrant tuning out completely.  Though anyone game for a paced exploration of how the overlooked and the marginalized deal with their demons will find “Devoured” to be thoughtfully haunting.

Review Score:  70

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