''Devil's Due'' is a 2014 American

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

supernatural horror film Supernatural horror film is a film genre that combines aspects of supernatural film and horror film. Supernatural occurrences in such films often include ghosts and demons, and many supernatural horror films have elements of religion. Common them ...

directed by

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (born February 19, 1978) is an American director, writer, actor, and musician. He is a founding member of the punk band Link 80 and co-creator of the filmmaking collectives Chad, Matt & Rob and Radio Silence Productions, Rad ...

and

Tyler Gillett Tyler Gillett (born March 6, 1982) is an American film director, cinematographer, actor, writer, and producer. A co-creator of the filmmaking collective Radio Silence, Gillett co-directed, with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the horror films '' Devil's ...

, and written by Lindsay Devlin. The film stars Allison Miller,

Zach Gilford Zachary Michael Gilford (born January 14, 1982) is an American actor, best known for his role as Matt Saracen on the NBC sports drama series '' Friday Night Lights''. In 2021, he starred in the Netflix horror limited series '' Midnight Mass''. ...

, and

Sam Anderson Sam Anderson (born c. 1946/1947) is an American actor. He is best known for his character roles such as Sam Gorpley on '' Perfect Strangers'', Principal Willis DeWitt on '' Growing Pains'', Holland Manners on ''Angel'', dentist Bernard Nadler o ...

. The film was released on January 17, 2014.

Plot

Zach McCall and his fiancé, Sam, decide to begin a video diary the night before their wedding so that their future child will have a record of their family history. After their wedding, they travel to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon. After attending

Carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

, they stop to speak to a

palm reader Palmistry is the pseudoscientific practice of fortune-telling through the study of the palm. Also known as palm reading, chiromancy, chirology or cheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those w ...

who tells Sam she was "born from death" and that "they have been waiting for her." Sam and Zach become frightened and leave. They find themselves lost on an unknown street and cannot return to their hotel. They eventually find a taxi driver (Roger Payano), who offers to take them to a nightclub. They reluctantly accept his offer and, after taking various shots in the club, fall unconscious. Sam is seemingly brought to an underground chamber, where she is subjected to a satanic ritual and engulfed by an unseen force. Zach and Sam awaken in their hotel the following day without remembering the previous night. A couple of weeks after the honeymoon, Sam discovers she is pregnant despite claiming to have taken birth control pills "religiously" ever since the wedding. Though shocked, Zach and Samantha are overjoyed and tell their family and friends the news. The couple later attends their first ultrasound scan, during which the doctor says that the baby looks healthy and that Sam is due by the end of March. At that moment, the ultrasound screen goes static but recovers after a moment. Throughout her pregnancy, Sam begins to experience a series of abnormal symptoms: nosebleeds, stomach bruising, cravings for raw meat (despite being a vegetarian), superhuman strength, telekinetic abilities, and violent acts of rage whenever she or the baby appear to be threatened. Also, Zach and Sam keep seeing strange people watching their house from afar. Sam becomes convinced that something is seriously wrong with the baby and that they are being watched. After a second visit to the doctor, a new doctor (Robert Aberdeen) appears and performs an amnio after Sam appears nauseous. He has no answer as to the whereabouts of their original doctor. Zach reveals Sam's parents were killed in a car accident when she was in utero, and she was removed via

caesarean Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because vaginal delivery would ...

. Before the couple returns home, masked men set up hidden cameras to monitor her progress and make sure she does not hurt the baby. When Sam is 8 months pregnant, the couple attends a holy communion at their church. Their usually friendly niece (Madison Wolfe) is oddly scared of Sam, and the priest (Sam Anderson) who officiated Zach and Sam's wedding looks at Sam during the service and violently coughs up blood. Later, at home, Zach reviews the communion footage he filmed and sees the mysterious cab driver sitting in a pew. He also reviews the footage from their night at the club and notices strange symbols on the doors. He visits the priest in the hospital, who explains that the symbol is related to summoning the Antichrist. Separate footage reveals three friends walking in the woods, where they find slaughtered deer. They suddenly discover Sam eating the intestines of a deer. When they try to speak to her, Sam kills them telekinetically. Zach investigates the symbol further and asks his sister, Suzie, to stay with Sam. He breaks into an apparently abandoned house at the end of his street, where he finds the CCTV footage of his house and the missing ultrasound. He is almost caught by the house's inhabitants, who appear to be performing a ritual. Zach barely manages to escape. When he does, he sees their second doctor, the man who was watching their house, the cult leader, and the cab driver who picked him up among the worshipers performing the ritual. Upon returning home, Zach finds the house surrounded by the masked men who have been watching them all along. Inside, he finds Suzie dead and hears Sam scream as the house is being destroyed by the beast within Sam fighting to get out. He finds Sam in the baby's nursery, standing in a trance-like state with a knife to her stomach. Zach screams for her to stop, but she presses the knife to her stomach anyway, and there is a violent blast of light. When Zach recovers, he finds Sam lying in her blood with her stomach cut. She cries and wonders if the baby is all right before dying. Zach grieves before the cab driver and the second doctor appear. Zach begs the intruders to leave them alone, but the doctor takes the baby. He is then arrested and interrogated by the police on the death of his wife and sister and the disappearance of his child. The ending shows another young couple on their honeymoon in Paris, where the same cab driver offers a lift, implying that the cycle will start again.

Cast

* Allison Miller as Samantha McCall *

as Zach McCall *

as Father Thomas *

Madison Wolfe Madison Wolfe is an American actress. She made her film debut in the adventure drama ''On the Road'' (2012) and her television debut in the HBO series ''True Detective'' (2014). She starred in the horror film ''The Conjuring 2'' (2016), and as B ...

as Brittany *

Aimee Carrero Aimee Carrero (born ) is a Dominican-American actress. She is known for her leading roles in the sitcom ''Young & Hungry'' (2014–2018), and the thriller series ''The Consultant (TV series), The Consultant'' (2023) with recurring roles on shows ...

as Emily *

Vanessa Ray Vanessa Ray Liptak (born June 24, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her roles on ''Pretty Little Liars'' as Charlotte Drake, on legal drama '' Suits'' as Jenny, on soap opera ''As the World Turns'' as Teri Ciccone, and on police dr ...

as Suzie *

Michael Papajohn Michael Papajohn (born November 7, 1964) is an American character actor, stuntman and former college baseball player for the LSU Tigers baseball team. He played Dennis Carradine in Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Man'' trilogy. Early life Papajohn was ...

as Police Officer *

Griff Furst Griff Furst (born September 17, 1981, in Van Nuys, California) is an American actor, film producer, and film director. Furst has appeared in over a hundred television and film productions. In 2011 a ''Variety'' article singled him out with ...

as Keith *

Robert Belushi Robert James Belushi (born October 23, 1980) is an American actor. In films, he is best known for his work on ''Sorority Row'', ''One Small Hitch'', and ''Valentine's Day (2010 film), Valentine's Day''. On television, he is best known as Allen ...

as Mason * Donna Duplantier as Dr. Ludka

Production

On December 18, 2012,

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

announced that

and

would be directing ''Devil's Due'', based upon a script written by Lindsay Devlin. Fox had approached the two directors (who are part of the filmmaking collective

Radio Silence In telecommunications, radio silence or emissions control (EMCON) is a status in which all fixed or mobile radio stations in an area are asked to stop transmitting for safety or security reasons. The term "radio station" may include anything ca ...

) based upon their short ''10/31/98'' in the 2012 horror anthology ''

V/H/S ''V/H/S'' is a 2012 American found footage horror anthology film and the first installment in the ''V/H/S'' franchise created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting, and produced by Miska and Roxanne Benjamin. It features a series of six fou ...

.'' Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett had been approached by several other companies for "haunted house projects" but chose to work on ''Devil's Due'' over the other projects because they felt that the script was a character based "creepy mood piece" that focused on the deteriorating relationship between its two main characters. In an interview, the directors said they "focused on Zach & Samantha's love story from day one and the horror of watching the person you love degenerate, and being left helpless beyond continuing to love them unconditionally." The script had been pitched to them as "a found-footage take on '' Rosemary's Baby''," but the directors wanted to find ways to make their movie different from the 1968 film that they both praise and consider a personal favorite. This included instilling "a fun energy throughout" and "a sense of humor into the script." Along with Allison Miller,

was announced to be in the film, which was shot during April 2013 in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett chose to shoot the film primarily with a Sony PMW-EX3, which they chose so that the film's actors could carry it throughout the film. The Canon 5D, Canon Vixia HF G10 and an iPhone 5 were also used in the production.

Promotion

Fox released its first trailer for the film on October 16, 2013, and a second trailer on December 5, 2013. Whereas the initial marketing campaign focused the intimate thriller aspects of the McCalls' love story, later marketing concentrated specifically on the larger horror facets of the film. On January 14, prior to the release of the film, Fox promoted the movie by releasing a video of footage of an

animatronic An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

baby carriage and demon baby scaring passers-by in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The video went viral shortly thereafter and has had over 20 million views as of January 17, 2014. A collector's edition of the Blu-ray with cover art by Orlando Arocena was released in 2017 alongside 19 MGM and Fox horror films such as '' Carrie'', '' Joy Ride'' and ''

Black Swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large Anatidae, waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent ...

''.

Reception

Critical reception of ''Devil's Due'' was negative. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film holds a rating of 21% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. The film's consensus reads: "Derivative and mostly uninspired, ''Devil's Due'' adds little to either the found-footage or horror genres that it's content to mimic." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a score of 34 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Much of the film's criticism centered upon the film's similarity to other films such as ''Rosemary's Baby'' and ''

Paranormal Activity Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

'', an element that ''

Fearnet Fearnet was an American digital cable television network, website and video on demand service owned by Comcast. The network specialized in horror entertainment programming through a mix of acquired and original series, and feature films. Backgr ...

'' reviewer Scott Weinberg remarked was likely more due to decisions by the film's production company than anything else. Weinberg called the movie "a darkly passionate homage to '' Rosemary's Baby'', the similarities are both intentional and affectionate," and ''

Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American independent multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news website specializing in information services that covered various horror media. The company expanded into other media including podcast ...

'' gave the film a favorable review, praising the acting of its lead characters, the sense of humor and drawing positive comparisons to the directors' earlier work on ''V/H/S''. However, since initial release the film has found a cult following and director

Eli Roth Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, namely splatter films, having directed the films ''Cabin Fev ...

has been vocal in his support of the film and in a series of posts on his official

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

account, wrote "Don't pre-judge ''Devil's Due'' because '' Rosemary's Baby'' is a 'holy grail' movie. It's so smart, creative, inventive, and fun. Very very scary. The guys at

killed it. ''Devil's Due'' is a legit scary, smart, horror film. So many awesome scenes. I loved it."

Use of found footage

Common criticism aimed is at the film's use of the found footage technique and asks the question "who assembled this footage?". The film's directors claimed that this was a deliberate choice, stating that "Audiences are way too smart to have the 'this is real' found footage wool pulled over their eyes anymore" and that, much like ''

Chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

'', "''Devil's Due'' doesn't pretend to be footage that anyone has found or compiled, it's simply a story told through cameras that exists in that world. In that sense, it's a bit of an experiment that we were able to have fun with and as the character's lives spiral out of control, we're able to mirror that journey visually by shifting to different POVs. The movie begins very bright, very intimate and full of movement, but as the watchers close in our couple we shifted to a lot more of the static cameras that exist in the world, like the security cameras, with much wider frames. We hoped to use that distance and coldness to mirror the despair and hopelessness that was tearing the couple apart." The film intentionally breaks many found footage conventions throughout, including the deliberate absence of a framing device (such as "these tapes were found by the police"), the use of an animated opening quote, a recognizable cast, a non-chronological narrative structure, and a music cue becoming the end-credits song.

Soundtrack

The film contains diagetic music from

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...

The Gaslight Anthem The Gaslight Anthem is an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, formed in 2006. The band consists of Brian Fallon (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano), Alex Rosamilia (lead guitar, backing vocals), Alex Levine (bass guitar, backing ...

Alkaline Trio Alkaline Trio is an American punk rock band from Chicago. The band's current members are Matt Skiba (guitar, vocals), Dan Andriano (bass, vocals), and Atom Willard (drums). Founded in late 1996 by Skiba, bassist Rob Doran, and drummer Glenn Por ...

Brenton Wood Alfred Jesse Smith (July 26, 1941 – January 3, 2025), known professionally as Brenton Wood, was an American singer and songwriter. Three 1967 singles of Wood's, " The Oogum Boogum Song" (peaking at No. 34 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100), " G ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

General Public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...