Bedeviled

Snap this. Instagram that. Follow and unfollow. These days it’s all about connecting with everyone every second of every day. Whether it’s via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other application. If you’re not online, you don’t exist.

However, despite all of the colourful rainbows and unicorns, there’s also a danger in our excessive social media use. Think about how many deaths there were so far due to the dangerous Instagram pictures taken from dazzling heights.

With their newest work, Abel Vang (“Hollywood Chaos”, “Decoding Fruit (Short)”) and Burlee Vang (“Nyab Siab Zoo”) show us that we certainly should rethink what we post online before it kills us all.

Nikky, Alexis G. Zall (“DC Super Hero Girls (TV)”, “Laid In America”), an 18-year old girl, is living a dream life of any teenage girl. Having a mother who cares deeply for her, loads of friends to have fun with and a bright future ahead.

However, that’s abruptly taken away from her in, literally, one heartbeat. While grieving and mourning her death, five of her best friends are receiving an invitation from Nikky to download the mobile Mr. Bedeviled app and play its game.

Being skeptical at first, the friends download the application and, to their surprise, it can do everything. From switching on and off lights to closing the curtains and even pre-heating the oven. It might sound like the Siri-application we all have. However, Mr. Bedeviled isn’t an app we want on our phone at all.

Soon the friends discover that it knows more about them than the usual and instead of feeding on batteries, it’s feeding on their fear. Thinking that they are just imaging things, the friends don’t take it very seriously. Until one of them dies.

Inexplicably, totally unexpected and mysterious. Just like Nikky’s death. When a second death follows soon after that, things are going from bad to worse. Is there more to the newly installed application or it’s just playing incredibly dark mind games?

Ok, you might know the answer to that question already but that doesn’t mean Bedeviled is another horror movie rip-off. First, it’s the modern age and the social media aspects that make from this movie a very interesting one.

Whether we admit it or not, we’re all somehow addicted to our phone. Think about that feeling when your battery just died, and the power bank gave up.

Sadly, the element of mobile applications linked to death isn’t just fiction like in this movie. It has already become reality. We already know the dangers of social media, but we still are turning a blind eye to it.

This movie will open your eyes when it comes to this topic and make you think twice before posting something again. Once posted on the internet, it will be there forever.

In Bedeviled, it’s all about fear, danger and unexplainable deaths and what made us watch the movie with full attention is the incredibly well-chosen cinematography in combination with the film score.

In the more dangerous and threating scenes, darker colors such as dark blue, black and grey are interwoven with bombastic and mysterious music. Most of the time, there’s also a hint of red in every scene to represent the blood that will be spilled.

Of course, you have the usual breaking glass, creaking wooden floors or unexcepted falling objects. There’re also some references to the classic horror films such as IT. Yeah, that scary clown and his red balloon still make us shiver after all these years. When it comes to creating fear, danger and scary moments, the makers from Bedeviled really pulled it off.

Sometimes when watching horror movies, the acting performances can be completely over the top to make it all look even more theatrical. We’re not saying that this isn’t the case in Bedeviled and that the performances are very subtle. No, not at all. They’re over the top and predictable but still enjoyable to watch and don’t make you feel uncomfortable.

Of course, there are the stereotypes such as the young blond girl who’s scared of the tiniest things (Alice Gorman played by the wonderful Saxon Sharbino (“Poltergeist”, “Touch (TV)”) and the rough tough guy who wants to save everyone (Cody portrayed by Mitchell Edwards (“Airstream (Short)”, “The Narrative Of Dalvin Reynolds (Short)”) and the bystanders who are waiting to see what will happen without sticking out their necks.

Yes, ok there are a lot of clichés in Bedeviled and it might be predictable. However, it’s still very entertaining because of the incredibly well balanced and perfect combination of cinematography and the film score.