Devil’s Cove

From the first second of Devil’s Cove, it’s obvious this is a low budget movie. Without budget, it is an uphill battle to make a good movie. Did Devil’s Cove brave that incline and struggle through its limited means to make a good piece of art? Nope! This movie is very bad!

Devil’s Cove focuses on the relationship of two women, Toni and Jackie. Toni is a new arrival to the small town of Devil’s Cove. Toni has married Rick to escape her home situation in a larger city. Unfortunately, Rick might not be a better alternative. Abused and alone, Toni quickly clings onto Jackie. Jackie has recently been released from prison, allegedly for killing her baby. Despite several red flags, Toni bonds with Jackie as Jackie offers her basic kindness. The two begin an affair. But Toni’s husband grows more abusive. So, Toni and Jackie (mostly Jackie) kill him. As they go on the run, their relationship sours. Toni realizes Jackie’s murder of Rick wasn’t exactly a behavioural outlier; she’s far too enthusiastic about killing men for Toni’s tastes.

Devil’s Cove was written by Chloe Traicos, who plays Jackie. This really surprised me given how exceedingly shallow Jackie is in both writing and performance. Jackie is a generic, no motivation “bad girl.” She kills men for fun, without remorse but mostly just because it moves the plot forward. The only depth to her character was potentially in her relationship with Toni. But halfway through the movie, even this goes away. Jackie and Toni don’t like each other any more. So, Jackie just does crimes and is awful without reason, depth or positive trait. When she finally admits she killed her infant child because he annoyed her, I didn’t even roll my eyes. I’d already used up my eye roll quota on other pointless crimes and cruelty she did without any depth.

It’s not just Jackie that’s bad though. None of this movie has any depth. This is a bit of a problem as the film does tackle some tough topics. Abuse, suicide, racism and sexual assault all get at least touched on in the film. But none with actual depth, intelligence or basic competence. The film is such a light touch that it almost feels like a comedy. Except there’s no punchline. Is there an audience for dramatic depictions of spousal abuse done so poorly it becomes comedy? If so, I guess I’d recommend Devil’s Cove. For everyone else though, probably not.

And to sum it all up, as mentioned, Devil’s Cove is very low budget and thus, bad to look at. It has that almost surreal air that some low budget films have. Between bad sets, weird blocking and flat dialogue, there’s almost a level of David Lynch absurdity to it. At least initially. By a half hour in, that surreal novelty wore off. The sets are bad, the sound is bad, the blocking is bad, the script is bad. It’s all just bad. There’s an overall amateur quality to Devil’s Cove that even a higher budget wouldn’t totally fix.

Devil’s Cove is bad and cheap. The script is shallow to begin with and its execution is exceedingly poor. If you want to watch a queer piece of media about a cove that starts with D, may I suggest the supernatural softcore soap opera, Dante’s Cove. It’s also very bad but in a much more entertaining way. There’s wizards in it! Devil’s Cove didn’t even have the decency to be funny bad. It was just bland, unpleasant and bad to look at.

Overall rating: 1.8/10

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