Plot

Two estranged brothers come together and discover old family secrets after inheriting their grandfather's property. As their friends start to go missing, they fear they are being stalked by a creature lurking in the shadows.

Cast

Made by the same chap who made the highly meh Occupation (2018).

Verdict

First of all let me clarify this is the movie Red Billabong (2016) re released for some reason.

The tale of two brothers torn between money and their fathers withes and between a peaceful life and being ripped apart by something nasty in the woods. As you can probably work out they have friends who conveniently join them as no horror movie is complete without a bit of cannon fodder.

The trouble is the film is so devastatingly boring, I found myself drifting off multiple times due to a combination of nothing of note happening and it being so generic when it did.

Combine that with some very poor CGI and phoned in performances and this is a very underwhelming effort.

Rants

I remember about a decade ago Australia went through a phase of delivering wall to wall fantastic films such as Wyrmwood and John Doe: Vigilante. It was a great time to be a world cinema fan, it was title after title then suddenly the quality flatlined and we were back to inconsistency again. I've often wondered why that was? A new set of writers who came and went? Law of averages? Or were they just trolling us? Either way, I'd love a repeat.

Breakdown

Poor CGI Weak characters It's all so incredibly generic.

I had actually never heard about this 2023 Australian horror movie from writer and director Luke Sparke prior to sitting down and watching it. I liked the movie's cover/poster, and with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to watch "Devil Beneath".

Well, writer and director Luke Sparke only managed to put together a somewhat watchable movie here. I mean, the movie was suffering from being somewhat too formulaic and generic, so when you sit down to watch "Devil Beneath", it is like watching essentially any other creature feature that came before it. There was nothing overly innovative or new here, aside from the movie having a bunyip as the creature.

The acting performances in "Devil Beneath" were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, which is usually something I enjoy when I watch a movie. However, the cast didn't really have much to work with in terms of an overly impressive script.

Visually then "Devil Beneath" wasn't all that great. The CGI animated bunyip looked like something straight out of a 1990s computer game. So yeah, you're not going to experience any particular spectacular or impressive CGI, should you opt to sit down and watch "Devil Beneath".

It felt like writer and director Luke Sparke was aiming for a 1980s horror movie feel and atmosphere here. However, it just didn't really muster up to any effectiveness.

This is not a horror movie that I will recommend for horror fans to rush out and get to watch. The movie came and went without leaving a lasting impression, and it is a movie that will just slowly fade away and be swallowed up by the mists of oblivion.

My rating of "Devil Beneath" lands on a three out of ten stars.

OH Dear!

I started watching this movie and then realized it was a movie that I had already seen quite some time ago....

It's Red Billabong - Released in 2016

Not sure the rational of waiting for such a long time to release it in North America...

I quite like the concept. I like the aboriginal content, but what could have been amazing, falls a bit flat.

The fight scenes are pretty terrible. I was just looking for more.

The beast is clearly fake. The acting is "OK", but not great and the storytelling is definitely not exciting.

What could have been an amazing story, turned into a lackluster tale.

Unfortunate.

I do think that this story could be retold with more bells and whistles.

Just my take...