The Devil's Well

The first half of the movie is a fake documentary and is pretty solid the second half is found footage. It begins well, but the team carries two obvious liabilities for no reason 1 - the husband, that the team don´t trust 2 - a medium that clearly doesn´t help with the claims of "finding uncontroversial proof" and is obviously going to be possessed In the last half hour the team that was working well suddenly starts acting stupid. There is no more protocol. Before they were exploring in groups, but now everybody walk into the darkness alone. when obnoxious sceptic guy see a man in the camera, he asks by radio that an unarmed little woman "go check to see if we are alone" the first 70 minutes were interesting and it would deserve a better evaluation, but in the ending it seems everybody took the Cabin in the woodspheromone that reduces intelligence

THE DEVIL'S WELL is another one of those interminable 'paranormal investigation' movies shot on an indie budget. The whole thing is dragged out ad infinitum and follows the same old predictable template. A team of researchers head off to a supposedly haunted location to look for a missing woman, but not before the viewer must sit through half an hour of the most boring interview segments ever. Before long we get to the usual scenes of characters lurking around in the gloom and pretending to be scared. It's not very convincing, but it is very boring.

Horrible found footage movie ... if the guys from slipknot went on a murder spree.

I read about this film back when it was called "The Unexplained Disappearance of Karla Marks." Now titled "The Devil's Well" it suffers from poor pacing, like of a developed mythology and a really horrendous ending. The opening is people talking about what happened to Karla and most of the characters are trying to push a spooky, paranormal explanation, but since we have no idea of the circumstances surrounding her vanishing, it sounds more like the actors pushing the idea, not the plot itself. And it goes on much too long, so there's no tension. Then it jumps a year later and a paranormal group is going to investigate what happened. Now, that fine--but again, all we know from the police, news reports, etc. is that she disappeared. An unsolved crime, but they keep blaming the spooks. Where the film falls apart is they spend so little time on the mythology. Supposedly there's a well in a cellar of a home built in the 1700s. A young girl jumped to her death in the well. Okay. And? And? That's about it. It's not like it happened every 50 years or so. Just once. Yet someone, it's called the devil's well and the property (an old text tile mill) is haunted. Really? Based on that? When the camera crew visits the town, they talk to residents a la BLAIR WITCH. But while BLAIR used these interviews to expand on the mythology, these interviews lead no where. "Don't go there--it's an unholy place!" "My friend felt sick to his stomach but when he went outside, he felt better." That's about all we get. The rest of the film is found footage based on their investigation. There is an eerie soundtrack added to the footage, which is really annoying unless the music was playing during the investigation. The acting throughout is okay, but really, the film is terribly padded. There are a couple, "OMG! Did you see that?" but even though they say they caught on camera other people in the building, we're never shown anything. The actors just wander in the darkness, chatting with one another so we get their backstories. But we don't care. And then (SPOILERS) Karla shows up at the well, dazed and confused. Then some thugs show up wearing silly "scary" masks (just for us, the audience) and kill everyone. Then Karla and the thugs all hold hands around the well, ready to serve him. Hmmm. Really? Why'd the little girl jump in the well back in the 1700s? She was never found again so if Karla is like the little girl, why is Karla found again and now part of the group of well wishers? None of this makes sense, the film is not at all scary, and it makes you wonder why they didn't bother to tie in the mythology with the disappearance of Karla. Skip it.

Don't waste your time watching this movie. I wish I would have read the reviews before watching this stupid movie!

Was drawn into seeing 'The Devil's Well', with a creepy poster/cover, a fine premise and as someone with a general appreciation for the genre it fits under. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there (though there are decent to good ones as well), made me though apprehensive. It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws present in those films are here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'The Devil's Well' is really quite awful, with so many huge flaws and doesn't do anything with any potential it had. There is nothing good here in 'The Devil's Well', amateur hour all round. Going on to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it comes over as vague and under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less unsettled and never gaining momentum. All the characters are too sketchy and with cardboard thin and colourless personalities and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. The chemistry is bland and unfocused. The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions), the effects are shoddy and nearly all of the acting is lacking severely on the whole, that's actually an understatement as the worst of it is horrendous. There is no sense of horror or engagement with the awful predicament they're in, and no connecting with the character, it just reeks of indifference and complete blankness which makes the viewer not care less too. Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace and film drags on forever, apparent from the very start, never recovering that interest is lost fast. The final third is stupid beyond belief. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Thrills are none, thanks to stodginess and excessive over-familiarity, and found myself never invested in the drama, which tended to be indifferently acted, interminably paced and statically directed. A lot of 'The Devil's Well' has really dull and going nowhere plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or unsettling. It all feels rather tame while the threat completely lacks menace and looks terrible. Nothing freaky or interesting, no development and too derivative, while everything is unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show any sense of dread. There is nothing interesting or illuminating with what the film was trying to do and the drama is overwrought with no momentum and a lot of weirdness. The direction is barely there and disorganised and the music is ill-fitting. 'The Devil's Well' is very amateurish visually, too drearily lit and shows no care in the way it's shot. The camera work is one of the film's biggest flaws in fact, the worst of it an eyesore. Overall, terrible. 1/10 Bethany Cox

But this is one of the worst found footage movies I have ever seen. The first 30 minutes is spent doing obviously fake interviews with misc people. About 33 minutes in, the movie actually starts and a team moves to the location they have been discussing. Then you really get to see how bad the actors are and watch the movie just fall apart. I watched this movie all the way through, hoping it would get better. At a point, I almost had hope for it, but it fell apart and just became a waste of time. Terrible actors, terrible script, terrible ending. Just all around bad. Probably the second worst found footage movie I have watched ever.

Another forgettable flick in the "paranormal investigation gone awry" subgenre. You'll forget it half an hour after you've seen it.

In lockdown times we all need films and have to scrape the barrel. This is better than many I've seen and only gets a bit cheesy at the end but worth watching.

The film started out strong... great concept, great structure and well filmed character building was great, Storyline was well fleshed out, charactes believeable and on point .... however in the last 20 minutes... it broke down, Faded out and was nothing short of lame and uninspired... so disappointed... director and writers let this whole thing down with thier shotty ending and unbelievable twist... too bad cause this could have been a really great story... what a shame.... should have listened to other comments and reviewers... should not have wasted my time... change the ending and you might have a winner....