[FrightFest Glasgow '26] FILM REVIEW: Bury the Devil

Bury the Devil - FrightFest Glasgow World Premiere Review

Director: Adam O'Brien

Starring: Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez, Dawn Ford, Bill Rowat, Jason Cavalier

Written by: Brad Hodson, John Petrizzi

Produced by: Benoit Beaulieu, Philip Kalin-Hajdu, Adam O'Brien

Cinematography by: Benoit Beaulieu

Original Score by: Mario Sevigny

Synopsis:

When a hospice nurse finds herself trapped with a dementia patient, she begins to suspect something else is wrong with the woman, something otherworldly, and must fight to survive the night.

Thoughts:

Filmed in real time and stylised as a "one-shotter" Adam O'Brien's fantastically atmospheric 'Bury the Devil' takes a while to get going but the slow and intense camera movements and impressive central performances will keep you hooked all the way through.

Dawn Ford plays Evelyn, an elderly dementia ridden woman who is in the care of hired home nurse Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez). The first Act of the film is essentially just following Julia around the spooky house and calling in with Evelyn ever so often as she gets ready to get settled down for the night. A storm begins to unfold outside and the way that the camera moves throughout the house feels very much like this should fall into the haunted house sub-genre.

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But Evelyn isn't just being affected by the horrendous disease known as dementia. She's haunted by something else, something supernatural that begins to fester as the film progresses and the storm outside becomes even wilder. The situation becomes even more tense when unwanted visitors arrive at the house and Julia must act as Evelyn's protector, much to her confusion, and all because of the claims that an ivory statue that Evelyn carries with her is "unsafe".

'Bury the Devil' may plod along at a snail's pace in the beginning but there's something so compelling about the visual aspects of the film. As mentioned above, the camera work is fantastic in it's simplicity and the real time element makes it painfully difficult to look away, particularly in this spooky big location complete with power cut. And as perverse as it may sound, anything with elderly and mentally unhealthy patients is usually a very uncomfortable watch. Despite the initial slow pace, O'Brien does a good job at allowing us to go on this distressing journey with Julia as she descends into a sort of hysteria while trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Evelyn and her unwanted visitors.

There's a certain moment in the film, around the 50 minute mark, when Evelyn runs away upstairs and Julia has to give chase, where it feels and looks almost like a found footage film, and that really shook things up for me. It felt like a turning point in the film where everything turned even more sinister.

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I noticed a number of hidden cuts (there were probably more) but the stylisation really works and keeps everything moving forward without sacrificing plot. It's a very difficult task to get right but it's one that O'Brien and cinematographer Benoit Beaulieu achieve successfully. There's a few homages to Dean Cundey's work in 'John Carpenter's Halloween' which is always lovely to see.

Dawn Ford is terrifying towards the last stretch of the film and the aesthetic influences of classic horrors like 'The Exorcist' and 'The Evil Dead' are evident in how the finale plays out. There's some CGI pyro effects at the end that isn't great but with an incredibly tense sound design and impressively, creepy visuals 'Bury the Devil' is sure to scare the shit out of cinema audiences everywhere.

Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Gavin Logan

'Bury the Devil' received its World Premiere at FrightFest Glasgow on March 6th