Antonio Campos

(Netflix Streaming, February 2021) There are films that land with a thud no matter the quality of the casting, the amount of sex and violence, or the high production values that you can throw at it, and such is the case for The Devil All the Time. Much of the problem is that writer-director Antonio Campos takes you forcefully to an ugly place and, at 139 minutes, keeps you there far longer than anyone would be willing to tolerate. Set in 1950s rural America, it’s a film that delights in the kinds of backwoods horrors best forgotten, and their accumulation looks more like a frenzied attempt to up the exploitation content than deliver a satisfying story. Apparently, rural Ohio is awash in insane preachers, rapists, ritual sacrifices, suicides and serial killers. But wait, there’s more, such as excruciatingly gritty cinematography that, for better but mostly for worse, lets you feel as if you’re stuck there for the duration. A rather good cast (including Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Sebastian Stan, Jason Clarke and Mia Wasikowska — with Pattinson being the most remarkable) can’t make the film any more likable. I’m not sure if the film really aims to be a backwoods Americana crime epic, but the result is just excruciating when it’s not simply too dull for words. The Devil All the Time proves to be an unusually descriptive title, especially if you focus on how long the entire thing feels.