Lord knows where a person who isn’t saved might end up...
Directed by Campos on 35mm film and produced by Jake Gyllenhaal, The Devil All the Time features actors Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Riley Keough in a drama-thriller. Based on a 2011 novel by Donald Ray Pollock, Netflix takes a shot at conveying sin and desolation in post WWII societies.
There are so many potential themes at play here, war, mental illness, religion, patriarchy, sexual abuse, power and corruption, and so on. The characters are intricately interwoven in a way that can feel overwhelming, but such is life in 20th-century Appalachia.
Willard and his wife Charlotte relocate in a town of 400 people called “Knockemstiff.” Despite taking place up north, most of the shooting was done throughout Alabama.
Although he's from the UK, Holland has that all-American look. His character Arvin is the son of a war veteran with undiagnosed PTSD. His worldview and circumstances are shaped by his father’s extreme faith after witnessing a crucified Marine in Vietnam. He takes Arvin into the woods to a rugged altar and teaches his son to pray. “No bullshit,” says Willard, pointing above. “He knows.”
Arvin remains an outsider in Knockemstiff, and his peers never accept him as one of them. When he comes home with a black eye, Willard has seen enough. He loads Arvin into his pickup truck and drives to the assailant's house. He lies in wait to catch the men off-guard, and avenges his son sevenfold.
Willard would sacrifice anything for his family, and when his wife is diagnosed with cancer, he instructs Arvin to pray for his mother's life. When his wife grows sicker and God doesn’t answer his plea, he goes as far as to sacrifice the family dog against the prayer log. Arvin promises that he will give Buddy a proper burial, but when he reaches the prayer log under the cover of night, he finds his father’s body.
Following his father's suicide, Arvin goes to live with his extended family in West Virginia, carrying nothing with him but his faith and the clothes on his back. On his 16th birthday, Earskell gives him his Willard's German WWII Luger he gave him for safekeeping when they reunited.
Out of desperation and pity, Willard's mother had promised God he would marry Helen Hatton, whose family had been killed in a fire. When he instead married Charlotte, the family took Helen in anyway and positioned her to marry Roy Lafferty, a preacher credited as being evangelical, but with word-of-faith practices.
Roy delivers a sermon at the local church, where he opens a jar of spiders and dumps them on his head. Helen is moved by his faith, and is determined to marry him then and there.
One day, Roy’s shtick goes too far and he is bitten on the cheek, causing him to suffer a severe allergic reaction. He takes this as a test from the Lord and a sign that he’s being prepared for something bigger. After a fortnight spent locked in the closet, he finally receives a Word.
After dropping off the baby, the preacher takes an unsuspecting Helen into the woods and stabs her in the neck with a screwdriver, watching her bleed out slowly. When she falls still, he attempts to summon the power of God to resurrect her. But Helen doesn't rise from the dead, and Roy plots his alibi on the ride home.
Roy doesn’t have to live with his guilt for very long. There aren’t a whole lot of what we might call ‘secondary characters’ in this story. There is one main subplot that seems superfluous until about halfway through the movie, but that’s when a Bonnie and Clyde-esque serial killer duo get added in to the mix.
Riley Keough plays her favorite trope as Sandy, who pops in once in a while to set the bait for her husband Clyde’s victims. Known as "the shooter", Clyde lures men into having sex with his wife and kills them after snapping a photo as a memento.
Meanwhile, the two orphaned children grow up side by side as brother and sister. Arvin is fiercely protective of his newfound sibling. When Lenora is bullied for her piety, Arvin takes his father's advice and waits for the perfect opportunity to jump the gang.
By the time they reach high school, Lenora has already found in herself the power to forgive her father for whatever wrongs he may have committed, no matter how egregious or convoluted. Arvin isn’t sure how he should feel.
The Coal Creek congregation’s beloved pastor falls ill and appoints one of his in-laws as an interim. There’s no one better to play this role than Robert Pattinson. If this movie were based on modern day tropes, he would likely be wearing black skinny jeans and white Air Forces. He takes this persona a step further by whipping a flashy white Chrysler 300 letter series. Pretty clean.
The new Reverend is met with mixed opinions. But people have a certain desperation for faith, one that leaves them even eager to take the word of the snake oil salesman.
As Lenora searches for a way to deal with her insecurities, Preston abuses his spiritual power the same way Roy did with her mother: by taking her on a car ride into the woods.
When the deputy reveals news from the coroner that Lenora was with child, Arvin begins to put two and two together. He claims that Teagardin refused to speak at Lenora’s service because she had killed herself.