Let me just start off by saying, I’m a huge, HUGE Supernatural fan (Dean girl all the way) so I was surprised that I had never heard of this movie before. Not gonna lie, the movie poster and tag line didn’t really do it for me but the lure of seeing Jensen Ackles in something other than the role he’s most known for definitely did it for me.
College student Jake Gray (Jensen Ackles) has spent a lifetime dealing with waking nightmares but has managed to separate dreams from reality in order to function. On his 21st birthday, his friends, Conrad (Teach Grant) and Dakota (Dominique Swain) present him with the gift of The Pathway; a computer game that quickly becomes more than they bargained for. While Jake gets drawn further into the game, the people around him start committing violent crimes and harming themselves and his visions become more and more disturbing. As his life crumbles around him, he starts to believe the game is to blame for everything. With the help of his last remaining friend, Marisol (Shannyn Sossamon), he looks to the developer of the game, Aiden Kater (Martin Cummins) for answers and ends up getting much more than he bargained for.
I obviously wasn’t looking for Oscar worthy performances from anyone but with such an experienced cast, I was expecting decent, if not good, execution. Here’s the problem… you can have the best cast on the planet but even they can’t save a poorly written film. At times the dialogue seems trite and forced which in turn, comes off as very wooden. The only saving grace is William Sadler as a heartbroken husband and father. Unfortunately, he only appears for a few minutes and it’s most definitely not long enough to pull Devour out of it’s tailspin.
When I first read the description, my mind immediately went to Stay Alive but where Stay Alive thrives, Devour falls far short. The entire premise of the movie hangs on the illusion of ‘The Pathway’ but the game is never explained. You can infer why they introduced Jake to it but how did they come across it and why did they decide to participate? Beyond that, the film also suffers from very little character development which leads the audience to not really care who lives or dies. Speaking of deaths, most of them are implied, rather than shown so you’re cheated out of the elation of watching these unlikable characters meet their demise.
All in all, Devour is slow, predictable and disappointing in every way. Somewhere in there, the whole premise, The Pathway, falls to the wayside and a whole different plot line takes over. Take the first, middle and end and make three different short films and they MIGHT be watchable. As it is, this pathway leads to nothing more than mediocrity.
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