Devon – Movie Review (1/5)

DEVON on Screambox is a found footage horror movie by Jenni “JWoww” Farley. Unfortunately, it isn’t good. At all. The only redeeming quality is that it’s only 72 minutes long. And still, it feels longer. Read our full Devon movie review here!

DEVON is a new horror movie on Screambox. It’s a found footage horror movie, and it’s set in a haunted asylum. Already there, it’s going down the road already trampled down by many other horror movies.

And this is not one of the better takes on the found footage haunted asylum angle. In fact, while the very core of the concept might be interesting, everything else is subpar. The lighting is awful – and not just in the found footage handheld POV shots – and the acting is… well, questionable.

Continue reading our Devon movie review below. Find it on Screambox from November 26, 2024.

Found footage in a haunted asylum? How innovative!

In Devon, we meet a group of five adventures, who applied to take part in a challenge, where they are to stay inside an abandoned asylum to search for a missing girl. It’s supposedly a haunted asylum, so hopefully, someone (or something) can help guide them to answers.

Devon features a real ghost?! What a neat marketing ploy!

I absolutely recognize that I’m sounding both jaded and bitter, which is accurate as the movie made me feel this way. Seeing one of the cast members sharing a story on social media about a real ghost making it into the film? Not helping!

Most famously, Three Men and a Baby (1987) supposedly had a ghost in the background of a scene. Hell, I even remember watching the movie on VHS and pausing to see the ghost. But trying to recreate (again, I’m in a jaded and bitter place) to help market a new horror movie? Give me a break!

These days, so many horror movies have the “people vomiting” or “someone fainted during a screening” stories, and I’m not buying half of it. Maybe none of these stories were ever true, but when they appear today for low-budget (or just plain bad) movies, I assume it’s an attempt at getting free PR.

With Devon, it’s no exception as the movie is so bad that it needs all the publicity it can get. I would rather recommend you watch it to feel empowered to try your hand at making a horror movie. The budget is estimated at $100,000 on IMDb, and I hope this is wildly overestimated.

We’ve literally reviewed creative, scary, and well-made horror movies made for a fraction of this!

You can find Devon on Screambox

Jenni “JWoww” Farley makes her directorial debut with this found footage horror movie. If the name JWoww sounds familiar, it’s because she was on the MTV hit reality series Jersey Shore. And yes, it was a big hit when aired from 2009-2012, but surely that isn’t enough reason to fund a movie?!

Well, it would appear that anyone with any kind of name recognition can get at least some funding. I mean, the “Hawk Tuah Girl” is the most recent example that 15 minutes of viral meme fame can lead to all sorts of entertainment industry deals.

Admittedly, I hoped this movie would be at least OK, and that Jenni Farley could be an up-and-coming horror filmmaker. However, you need some outsiders with experience and talent.

For this production, it seems everyone involved with the production has been proverbial “Yes men” and that’s too bad. Surely, someone watched this production and figured that it wasn’t looking good. If not, you need to surround yourself with different people and do better in the future.

This is just sad. And the current IMDb rating of 2.8 [as of writing this review] isn’t being too tough on the movie.

DEVON was released in digital form on November 12 and will stream on Screambox from November 26, 2024.

Details

Director: Jenni Farley
Writer: Jenni Farley
Stars: Tara Rule, Hank Santos, Steven Etienne, Rotisha Geter, Lauren Carlin