The Devil's in the Details

The Devil's Den

Directed by Jeff Burr
Written by Mitch Gould
Starring Ken Foree, Kelly Hu, Devon Sawa
DVD Release: 2/13/2007
Anchor Bay

Alright, so The Devil's Den is a cheap knock-off of From Dusk Till Dawn . Knock-offs are not always a bad thing. For example, Charles Band and Full Moon have done them for years, doing low-budget versions of Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Star Wars and others. In doing so, they gave work to one of the last geniuses of stop-motion animation, Dave Allen. Knock-offs also sometimes take on subversive themes that mainstream movies avoid. Just look at the treatment of transvestism in the work of Ed Wood.

That said, The Devil's Den has absolutely nothing to compare favorably to From Dusk Till Dawn. And yet, because it is such an inept piece of filmmaking, any student of film could profit by comparing it with Dawn to see why it works and Den fails so badly.

Both films have the same basic premise of outlaws (and others) showing up at a titty bar in Mexico only to find that the strippers are a coven of vampires intent on devouring their patrons. (In Den they emphasize that the girls are ghouls, not vampires, but there is no substantive difference and the point seems to be made only to distinguish the film from Dawn ). Strippers attack, patrons die, lead characters fight and eventually triumph. Den eventually develops a unique back-story to the bargirls, but little else differentiates the premises.

To start by comparing the most obvious, Devon Sawa as Quinn, the lead character of Den , lacks the charm and acting chops of George Clooney. Yeah, old George is mostly a Hollywood A-lister because of his pretty-boy looks, but the amoral brutality that he exudes in Dawn is so unlike his usual boyscout sincerity that the role stands out as one of his best performances. Sawa on the other hand looks like an almost sober Anthony Michael Hall. It doesn't help that his quips are tired and trite while Clooney has some blazing Tarantino dialogue to work with.

Dawn also profits from a long exposition before the characters reach the bar that nearly stands on its own as a rich Jim Thompson-esque crime film. Even viewers who don't like the vampire story of the second half of the film agree that first half is first-rate. It stands as one of the best evocations of the spirit of Jim Thompson's novels, better than most direct adaptations such as the two versions of The Getaway. And when the crew arrives at the titty bar, the set inside and out is a vivid explosion of decadent color and pornographic architecture. Outrageous sin flourishes best in the desert as Sodom , Gomorrah and Vegas do attest, and the “Titty Twister” trucker bar (and its scum of the galaxy patrons) in Dawn captures this brilliantly. Sadly, the set used in Den looks about as daring as your average strip-mall Chinese restaurant. One can blame this on the low budget, but as John Cassavetes said, “Money kills creativity.” When you lack money, you need to invent and create in order to achieve the effect you are looking for.

Other differences of note: both films use a featured dance sequence to introduce the star stripper/evil queen. In Dawn , Salma Hayek is resplendent as an Aztec goddess in her feathered headdress and gives one of the most erotic and show-stopping performances since Salome danced off the head of John the Baptist. Dawn Olivieri, playing the same role in Den , is in pseudo Arabic costume (why?!) and dances with choreography of less aesthetic value than the average pole dance.

Looking at the other actors, Ken Foree plays the Fred Williamson role in Den , and though he's given lines as bad as everyone else's, I would insist that as an actor he has as much gravitas as the “Hammer” does. Kelly Hu in Den is not really comparable to Juliette Lewis in Dawn . Hu is mainly there for her looks and stereotypical Asian martial arts prowess, both of which serve her far better than her line readings.

Thematically, Dawn reveals a male anxiety over the abuse of women – as prostitutes, topless dancers, or truck-stop honeys – and the fear that they will strike back. In the most Freudian way, the vampires of Dawn play on the male subconscious, the primal fear that the vagina is a devouring mouth that hides sharp teeth. This is only highlighted by the brutal testosterone of the Gecko brothers and the other patrons of the bar, mainly truckers and bikers.

But it's really the direction where the two films differ most. Tarantino tends to get more attention than Robert Rodriguez, but no one does action better than Rodriguez. His sense of movement (reminiscent of George [whatever happened to…?] Miller's early Mad Max work), lighting, and camera angles make the footage in Dawn a living thing, a whipping snake that strikes you everywhere except where you are expecting it. Jeff Burr in Den on the other hand cannot seem to get the actors to speak and move at the same time. Every time the actors share dialogue, the action, and the movie as a whole, grinds to a stop and the viewer gets an itchy Fast Forward finger over the remote. It's bad enough that the dialogue is predictable and does not advance the story – that's just bad writing. But when it actually stops the film, that's the director's fault. Here Burr could learn from Carpenter's or Leone's early films: don't say it, show it! When your characters have nothing of value to say, shut them up.

So while the film fails on every point, it fails in an instructive way. Film students take note.

by Nemo Swift
reprinted from BOFFM #4 (forthcoming)