Devil (also known as The Night Chronicles: Devil) is a 2010 American supernatural horror film directed by John Erick Dowdle and written by Brian Nelson based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O'Hara and Geoffrey Arend. Devil was released on September 17, 2010, and is the first of The Night Chronicles trilogy,^[2] which involves the supernatural within modern urban society. Devil opened at the number three spot in the box office opening weekend, taking in a total of $12 million.

Plot[link]

Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) speaks in a voice-over about stories that his mother told him about the Devil sometimes actively seeking out individuals who have sinned, while they're still alive on Earth. While taking human form, he traps them in a confined place only to turn them against each other, before killing them one at a time. Ramirez explains that the last victim will die in front of his or her loved one to make cynics of them all, and in the end, all will die. He says that the signs are set in motion with a suicide, as that is when the Devil first makes his presence known. This story is abruptly interrupted by a violent suicide of a man who had fallen from the thirty-fifth floor of a Philadelphia office building; the truck he landed on rolls silently away from the scene.

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is a recovering alcoholic who is assigned to the case of the suicide. He later explains that the reason for his alcoholism was the hit and run death of his wife, and toddler son, five years prior, where the perpetrator had only left a car wash ticket saying "I'm so sorry". When he investigates the suicide, he determines that the truck originated from an office building down the block from where the victim was found. Meanwhile, five strangers board an elevator, which becomes stuck between floors just shortly after starting up to the upper floors. When security finds them, they notice that there is CCTV and a radio with which they can call into the elevator, but they have no way of hearing the passengers in return. Bowden takes the investigation regarding the elevator as it is the same building from which the suicide victim jumped.

Ramirez is revealed to be one of the security guards and is disturbed by an image of what looks like a screaming face frozen on the video monitor that flashes away. His boss Lustig (Matt Craven) dismisses the superstitious suspicions and sends repair technician Dwight (Joe Cobden) to investigate the elevators while Bowden tries to ascertain the identities of the individuals. Only four of the five are accounted for: Vince McCormick (Geoffrey Arend), a sleazy mattress salesman known for investments and frauds; Sarah Caraway (Bojana Novakovic), the wife of a rich man who is a pathological liar and plans to leave her husband and take his money; Ben Larson (Bokeem Woodbine), a temporary security guard with a history of violence, who is in only his second day on the job; Jane Kowski (Jenny O'Hara), an older woman who is seen on video to be a thief, and another man who later introduces himself as Tony (Logan Marshall-Green), who does not appear to have signed in at the security desk.

The power goes out in the elevator and Sarah is wounded with what appears to be a bite. All suspicion is initially focused on Vince, who has been edgy since the ride began, however there is another power failure and Vince is thrown into the mirror only to have his jugular vein sliced. The others watch in horror as he dies, forcing Bowden to consider this a murder scene. Dwight attempts to rappel down the elevator shaft via a pulley to try to fix the elevator, but Ramirez says that the Devil will stop any attempts to help his victims, and Dwight's strap comes loose when he is knocked over by a flock of bats and plummets to the roof of the elevator. The power goes out again. When it comes back, Jane is found hanging from the ceiling from a light cable, dead, causing both Sarah and Ben to accuse Tony while Tony swears his innocence. Tony then releases her from the cables that hang her from the ceiling, causing her body to fall to the floor.

Lustig goes to investigate the power in the basement and there finds a loose power cable that appears to be the cause of the elevator malfunction, but he is electrocuted trying to fix the issue. Meanwhile in a men's room adjacent to the main lobby, Bowden finds a set of tools that Tony had brought in and briefly suspects he might be responsible for sabotaging the elevator. His suspicions then turn to Ben when he realizes that the building's security company, Caraway Security, is owned by Sarah's husband. Aware of Ben's violent past, he becomes convinced that Ben was hired to kill Sarah by her husband to keep her from leaving him broke, and that the two other murders were orchestrated to make the entire episode appear as a random serial killing. However Ben himself becomes the victim of the next blackout, when he winds up on the floor with his neck twisted around grotesquely, leaving the police further horrified and baffled.

The two remaining survivors, Sarah and Tony, face off with each other, but lower their weapons after Detective Bowden calms them down over the loudspeaker. Then there is another blackout and Sarah's throat is cut. As she stuggles to breathe in his arms, a woman claiming to be Tony's fiancee is brought before Bowden and informs him that Tony's last name is "Janekowski", and that he is in the building for a job interview, thus eliminating the possibility of the old woman's name being Jane Kowski.

As they realize this the old woman rises up, revealing herself to be the Devil. Tony tries to bargain with her to save Sarah's life and sacrifice his own; she scoffs at this, revealing that she's going to kill him anyway. In a last, desperate plea for forgiveness, Tony, using a radio, confesses to a hit and run five years earlier: while drunkenly reaching for beer in his car, he smashed into another car and killed a woman and her child. He says over the radio that he is "so sorry" and Bowden realizes that Tony was the one who killed his family (based on the car wash ticket). Bowden realizes that Ramirez was right about him having been meant to be the audience to this.

The Devil, powerless now that Tony has repented of his sin, curses before vanishing, and the elevator comes back on line, leaving Tony's life spared. Bowden offers to take Tony into custody for the confession, and while en route, informs him who he is. But despite saying he'd gone over what he'd say, or what he would do if they'd ever cross paths, he forgives Tony.

Ramirez, again in a voice-over, says that his mother always reassured him at the end of her stories, "If the Devil is real, then God must be real too."

Cast[link]

• Chris Messina as Detective Bowden
• Logan Marshall-Green as Anthony "Tony" Janekowski (listed on the credits as "Mechanic")
• Jenny O'Hara as Jane Kowski (listed on the credits as "Old Woman")
• Bojana Novakovic as Sarah (listed on the credits as "Young Woman")
• Bokeem Woodbine as Ben Larson (listed on the credits as "Guard")
• Geoffrey Arend as Vince McCormick (listed on the credits as "Salesman")
• Jacob Vargas as Ramirez
• Matt Craven as Lustig
• Joshua Peace as Detective Markowitz
• Joe Cobden as Dwight
• Caroline Dhavernas as Elsa Nahai

Production[link]

In October 2008, Shyamalan announced, in partnership with Media Rights Capital, that Devil will be made with the Dowdle brothers as directors and Brian Nelson as the screenwriter.^[3] Filming started on October 26, 2009 in Toronto.^[4] There was additional shooting for the film several months later in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.^[5] Joe Cobden had to train for four months to prepare for his role. He said that preparing for his death scene, which took four days to shoot, was the hardest scene to shoot except for the introduction and closing.

Story sources[link]

Based on recent film clips, Ysamur Flores and the directors of Devil, John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, explain that the movie is based on a Devil's Meeting, which is a premise that the Devil is on Earth to test evildoers by tormenting them.^[6]

Shyamalan acknowledged that the basic structure of the story was "an Agatha Christie nod."^[7] In Christie's 1939 novel And Then There Were None, as in Devil, a group of people with guilty pasts are trapped in an isolated area and begin to die one by one. The final plot twist is also the same, with the villain being revealed as one of the group who was thought to have died earlier in the story. Additionally, a main character in both stories is named Tony, and both killed two people with a car. However, Tony Marston, the one from the novel, dies first, where Tony Janekowski in the film does not die at all.

Release[link]

The film was set to have a release date on February 11, 2011, but was bumped up to September 17, 2010. The film's trailer debuted online on July 13, 2010. It was attached with Inception, Salt, The Other Guys, The Expendables, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Last Exorcism, Takers, Machete, Going the Distance, and Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Critical reception[link]

The film was not screened to critics in advance.^[8] Devil has received mixed reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a mixed score of 55%, with an average rating of 5.5/10, with the site's consensus being "It's better than many of the other films M. Night Shyamalan has been associated with, but Devil never gets more than a few low-budget thrills out of its fiendishly promising premise."^[9] Dennis Harvey of variety.com gave Devil a lukewarm review, saying "Like the solid B-thrillers of yore that often outshone A-pics topping double bills, M. Night Shyamalan-produced Devil is nothing very special or original, but it gets the job done briskly and economically."^[10]

Home media[link]

The film Devil was released to DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 21, 2010.^{[citation needed]}

Box office[link]

The film came in third for the weekend of September 17–19, 2010, behind The Town and Easy A, taking $4,930,000 on Friday and $12,584,000 domestically for the weekend.^[11]

Sequels[link]

On June 23, 2010, Shyamalan announced the second film in The Night Chronicles, titled 12 Strangers at first, but later changed the title to Reincarnate. The film is about a jury discussing a case dealing with the supernatural. Chris Sparling is set to write the script and Daniel Stamm will be the director.^[12] Shyamalan has also confirmed that the story for the currently untitled third installment is actually going to be taken from the abandoned sequel of Unbreakable.^[13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Devil at AllRovi
• Devil at Box Office Mojo
• Devil at the Internet Movie Database
• Devil at Metacritic
• Devil at Rotten Tomatoes

Immortal Technique
Immortal Technique performing in March 2010.
Background information
Birth name	Felipe Andres Coronel
Born	(1978-02-19) February 19, 1978 (age 34) Lima, Lima Province, Peru[1]
Origin	Harlem, New York, United States
Genres	East Coast hip hop, alternative hip hop, political hip hop, Underground Hip Hop, Hardcore Hip Hop
Occupations	Rapper
Years active	2000–present
Labels	Viper Records
Associated acts	Akir, Diabolic, Lowkey, Chino XL, DJ Green Lantern, La Coka Nostra, Jean Grae, Rockin' Squat, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Ras Kass, Krs-One, Pumpkinhead, Reppin MG
Website	myspace.com/immortaltechnique

Felipe Andres Coronel (born February 19, 1978), better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper of Afro-Peruvian descent as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Harlem, New York.^[2] Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics. The views expressed in his lyrics are largely commentary on issues such as class struggle, poverty, religion, government and institutional racism.

Immortal Technique has voiced a desire to retain control over his production,^[3] and has stated in his music that record companies, not artists themselves, profit the most from mass production and marketing of music. He claimed in an interview to have sold close to 200,000 copies of his three official releases.^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Coronel is African-Peruvian and was born in 1978 in a military hospital in Lima.^[1] His family emigrated in 1980 to Harlem.^[5] During his teenage years he was arrested multiple times due in part to what he has said was "selfish and childish" behavior. He attended Hunter College High School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Shortly after enrolling in Pennsylvania State University, he was arrested and charged with assault-related offenses due to his involvement in an altercation between fellow students, the charges stemming from this incident led to him being incarcerated for a year.^[1][6] After being paroled, he took political science classes at Baruch College in New York City for two semesters at the behest of his father, who allowed Coronel to live with him on the condition that he go to school.^[7] Honing his rapping skills in jail, and unable to find decent wage-paying employment after his release, Coronel began selling his music on the streets of New York while battling with MCs whenever the opportunity arose.^[8][9][10] This, coupled with his victories in numerous freestyle rap competitions of the New York underground hip hop scene such as Rocksteady Anniversary, Braggin Rites and others, led to his reputation as a ferocious Battle MC.^[11]

Revolutionary Vol.1 and Vol.2[link]

In 2001, Immortal Technique released his first album Revolutionary Vol. 1 without the help of a record label or distribution, instead using money earned from his rap battle triumphs^[11]. He also battled but lost to Posta Boy in 106 & Park's Freestyle Friday. Revolutionary Vol. 1 also contained the underground classic Dance With The Devil. In November 2002, he was listed by The Source in its "Unsigned Hype" column, highlighting artists that are not signed to a record label. The following year, in September 2003, he received the coveted "Hip Hop Quotable" in The Source for a song entitled "Industrial Revolution" from his second album. Immortal Technique is the only rapper in history to have a "Hip Hop Quotable" while being unsigned.^[11] He released his second album Revolutionary Vol. 2 in 2003. In 2004, Viper Records and, in 2005, Babygrande Records re-released Immortal Technique's debut, Revolutionary Vol. 1, to make it available to a wider audience. "Point of No Return" from Revolutionary Vol 2 was used as the entrance theme for Rashad Evans during the UFC 88 Main Event between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans.

Revolutionary Vol.3 and The Middle Passage[link]

Immortal Technique (left) at the Roskilde Festival, 2006.

Between 2005 and 2007 Immortal Technique began working on The Middle Passage and The 3rd World, the two albums that would serve a follow up to Revolutionary Vol. 2 and complete the series. He was also featured on several movie soundtracks and video game soundtracks, all the while touring relentlessly and becoming heavily involved in visiting prisons to speak to youth and working with immigrant rights activists and raising tens of thousands of dollars for children’s hospitals overseas. He invested his money not in items that are usually associated with fame but rather in large pieces of farmland in Latin America. He created a writing grant program for high school students as well.^[12]

The Martyr[link]

In October 2011 Immortal Technique released The Martyr, a free compilation album of previously unreleased material and new tracks. ^[13]

Collaborations[link]

The summer of 2005 saw the release of "Bin Laden", a vinyl single 12" featuring Mos Def and DJ Green Lantern. The single also contained a remix of the song featured Chuck D of Public Enemy and KRS-One. In early 2006, the song "Impeach the President", featuring Dead Prez and Saigon turned up in the mixtape "Alive on Arrival" DJ Green Lantern. This is a simple version of The Honeydrippers, 1973, in which Immortal Technique urged fans to organize a vote of censure against George W. Bush. In April 2009, a new song leaked on the internet named "Democratie Fasciste (Article 4)" by Brazilian-French rapper Rockin' Squat which featured Immortal Technique. The official release of the song and Rockin' Squat's album Confessions D'un Enfant Du Siècle Volume 2 was on May 12, 2009. The instrumental from the song was sampled from Wendy Rene's "After Laughter". The song expresses the inequalities of the Third World and revolutionary events throughout history against tyranny and oppression. The song contains lyrics in English (Immortal Technique), French (Rockin' Squat) and brief shout outs in Spanish (Immortal Technique). This song is Immortal Technique's first official international collaboration.^[14] In early 2009, it was announced that there would be a collaboration between Technique and UK underground artist Lowkey, on a single called "Voices of the Voiceless". On September 11, 2009, a "snippet" of the song was released on YouTube.^[15] The preview was released ahead of its September 21 launch on iTunes, as part of a web-campaign that included updates, promotion and links on forums, E-Magazines and several social networking sites. The song's lyrics cover a broad range of issues that are familiar to listeners of both artists – racism, world revolution, war, socialism, government control, rape, famine, colonialism, Classism, self-determination and the war in Iraq.^[16]

Charitable work[link]

Immortal Technique performing in March 2010.

In June 2008, Immortal Technique partnered with Omeid International, a Non–Profit Human Rights Organization, to lend his support. He dubbed the work as "The Green Light Project". With the profits of The 3rd World album, Immortal Technique traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan to help Omeid build an orphanage without any corporate or external funding. The orphanage, having been successfully established, currently houses over 20 orphaned children from Kabul.^[17]

Films[link]

[edit] The (R)evolution of Immortal Technique

A documentary about Immortal Technique was released in September 2011 and premiered at the Harlem Film Festival.^[18]

[edit] This Revolution

Immortal Technique appeared as himself in a docudrama film entitled This Revolution, which was recorded during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. The tape contains the protests surrounding the convention in the form of a documentary. It also featured Viper Records affiliates Akir and producer SouthPaw in roles.

Since then Immortal Technique has taken control of Viper Records and has signed a distribution deal with Babygrande Records / E1 Entertainment to vent to their next album. SouthPaw has managed to establish himself as A&R of Viper Records.

Discography[link]

Studio Albums[link]

Compilation Albums[link]

• 2011: The Martyr

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Immortal Technique on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

• Official website
• Immortal Technique on Twitter
• Immortal Technique on Myspace
• Immortal Technique at Allmusic
• Immortal Technique at MTV
• Immortal Technique at AllRovi
• Immortal Technique at the Internet Movie Database