‘Devil’s Acid’ Review
Stars: Drew Rin Varick, Ashley Dulaney, Jessica Lynn Parsons, Betty Jeune, Eric Gibson, Misty Ormiston, Kim Ormiston, Finch Nissen, Garrett Kruithof, Nina Leon | Written by Eric Gibson, Finch Nissen | Directed by Garrett Kruithof
Billed as the trippiest genre film of 2019, Devil’s Acid sees a drunk father (the films director Garrett Kruithof) telling his son a bedtime story about a group of people spending the night at an abandoned, and possibly haunted, prison facility, where they all take “Devil’s Acid”. They then start having problems differentiating between reality and the trip. And the devil may or may not actually show up to taunt them all!
So, and bear with me on this, we have a guy telling a story to some kids (who later hijack the story themselves) – which straight away taints the legitimacy of the story within. Then everyone in said story takes acid – which taints the legitimacy of everything they say or do. Then the devil turns up – which taints the validity of everything! Oh and the guy telling the story is also IN the story… Did he experience it for himself or is he making it up as he goes along? Who knows but it makes for one hell of a film.
Packed with a variety of out-there characters – led by Johnny (Drew Rin Varick), a small man with a huge ego and big mouth – Devil’s Acid feels very much like Doom Asylum, Richard Friedman’s 1988 horror. Insomuch that we have a group of people trapped in a strange locale of their own choosing… well that and like Friedman’s film Devil’s Acid is cheap and cheerful in its execution. Though unlike that film this terror trip is more trip and definitely less terror. For a horror-comedy Devil’s Acid is low on scares and high (pun intended) on laughs. Oddball, off-kilter laughs they may be but they’re still laughs!
Plus who doesn’t want to see a bunch of people tripping balls so much that that they enter complete psychosis!
Given that I watch a myriad of low-budget genre films each and every week I’ve taken to measuring their quality on whether or not I actually WANT to keep watching a film or MUST keep watching in order to review it. If it’s the former I consider the film decent, even if it has its issues; if not… Well it has to be bad! Devil’s Acid thankfully falls into the former – despite not being all that scary the film is remarkably fun, mainly thanks to the performances of its cast. For whilst their characters may be out there, over-the-top and oftentimes stupid, the casts performances are actually compelling – managing to make the characters memorable even if they’re not likeable.
’60s psychedelia meets ’80s comedy-horror sensibilities, Devil’s Acid is out now from High Octane Pictures.
