Bury the Devil

by Hope Madden

Things don’t often go well for live-in nurses in horror movies. Whether the caregiver is a loved one (Undertone, Relic, The Taking of Deborah Logan) or a professional (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, The Dark and the Wicked), the patient always seems to bring with them an additional presence.

So, I guess Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) only has herself to blame. If she’d watched more horror, she might have known that her latest gig in a gorgeous lakeside home with Evelyn (Dawn Ford) would take more from her than her time and compassion.

Writer/director Adam O’Brien’s Bury the Devil creates a great, spooky atmosphere. Long takes and a prowling camera give the film a haunted quality, and O’Brien makes the most of his limited budget with a small but talented cast and this stunning location.

Ford takes advantages of the opportunities afforded her, gliding from wistful old woman to confused dementia sufferer to something sinister and back with ease. She commands the screen as patients in these films rarely do.

Likewise, Martinez carves out a believable character—not the martyr or conniver, just a working nurse on her first night in a new home.

The writing is occasionally pushy, trying too hard to wedge information into conversations without forced exposition. We exist only in the present tense. There are no flashbacks or days marked on the screen to help us along. Instead, O’Brien drops us into Julia’s first night and possibly Dawn’s last. It’s a structure that keeps the film moving and surprising, but it doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity to expand the story.

The gaps in the mythology weaken the climax. What you don’t know and couldn’t possibly understand without some guidance leaves you guessing at too much. That guesswork keeps the finale from feeling like a resolution, like pieces finally fit into a puzzle. It’s not enough to ruin the movie, but it’s enough to keep it from leaving a mark.