About.com Rating

Those of you hoping the found footage horror movie trend will fade away soon might be waiting quite a while, because they're so cheap to produce, it's hard for them not to be profitable. Unfortunately, this doesn't foster an atmosphere of high-quality artistry, and the latest of the crop to underwhelm is the Rosemary's Baby retread Devil's Due.

The Plot

On the final night of their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, newlyweds Sam (Allison Miller) and Zach (Zach McCall) are lured into an underground (literally) night club, where they get blackout drunk.

While unconscious, some shadowy individuals perform a cultish ceremony, and soon after arriving home, the couple finds that Sam is expecting.

Initially, her pregnancy symptoms seem normal enough -- ankle swelling, increased appetite -- but they take a dark turn when she begins to experience sharp stomach pains, nosebleeds and seemingly hypnotized trances in which she becomes violent and craves raw meat. As the incidents mount, it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary baby, and Sam rushes to uncover the truth behind the pregnancy before it's too late.

The End Result

Devil's Due is Rosemary's Baby for the 21st century in everything except name and quality. It's a technically competent but tired rehash of genre tropes that adds nothing new to either the found footage legacy or that of satanic cult/devil baby flicks. The script is lazy beyond belief, with one-dimensional characters who robotically go through the motions and nary a twist or subplot to be found. There's an implication that Sam, whose parents dies when she was born, has somehow been destined from birth to have a devil baby, but the story never delves into her background, which probably would've been more interesting that watching scene after scene of her doing something "shocking" as the pregnancy progresses.

It's basically 80 minutes of buildup -- like watching a stranger's fleetingly interesting home movies -- until the climactic birth scene, which is effective (and similar to the climax of directing team Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's "10/31/98" segment from V/H/S) but comes far too late to make Devil's Due worthwhile. Along the way, there's only one scene -- during a party -- that's borderline scary and another -- in a wooded area -- that feels like it uses the first-person format with any semblance of innovation. The rest is a dull, by-the-numbers affair that can only further sour the attitude of horror fans to found footage.

The Skinny

• Acting: C (Solid but lacking charisma.)
• Direction: C (Fails to deliver scares.)
• Script: D (Dull and predictable.)
• Gore/Effects: C+ (A couple of modest gore scenes; some decent CGI effects.)
• Overall: C- (Competent but uninspired and almost completely devoid of frights or surprises.)

Devil's Due is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and is rated R by the MPAA for language and some bloody images. Release date: January 17, 2014.