Everything You Need to Know About Netflix's The Devil All the Time
People Keep Telling Robert Pattinson That He Smells Like Crayons
Eau de Crayola?
Prestige television is getting a dose of star power with Netflix's upcoming film, The Devil All the Time. Twilight alum turned Batman, Robert Pattinson, is starring alongside Spider-Man's Tom Holland and fellow Marvel standby Sebastian Stan in a Southern Gothic family saga based on the novel by acclaimed author Donald Ray Pollock. Before the flick gets Oscar buzz and everyone's talking about it, here's what you need to know.
Who's starring in the movie?
Alongside Pattinson (who plays preacher Preston Teagardin), Holland (lead Arvin Russell), and Stan, expect to see IT star Bill Skårsgard, Riley Keough (American Honey, Mad Max: Fury Road), Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Winchester), Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland and Crimson Peak), Eliza Scanlen from Sharp Objects, and Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train). Antonio Campos is directing.
Campos, along with his brother, Paulo, wrote the screenplay.
"It was a hard book to adapt also because there was so much that we loved," Antonio told Entertainment Weekly. "I’m a big fan of Southern Gothic and noir and this was a perfect marriage of the two. Sometimes, you might be adapting a piece and you think, like, 'Well, there is a seed of a good idea here and I'll just throw everything away and start from scratch.' In this case, it was like, we love everything!”
What is The Devil All the Time even about?
Here's Netflix's official synopsis of the new movie:
"In Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters — an unholy preacher (Robert Pattinson), twisted couple (Jason Clarke and Riley Keough), and a crooked sheriff (Sebastian Stan) — converge around young Arvin Russell (Tom Holland) as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family. Spanning the time between World War II and the Vietnam war, director Antonio Campos' The Devil All the Time renders a seductive and horrific landscape that pits the just against the corrupted."
Scanlen elaborated, saying that the film deals with faith and family. She also explained the film's arduous filming schedule.
"This film is about the ways people struggle with their faith, and how they define faith for themselves and what it leads them to do. We see in this film very extreme depictions of this struggle," Scanlen told IndieWire. "It was only a 10-day shoot, but it was filled to the brim with really tricky scenes and a really tricky storyline to fill amongst other people's storylines. It was definitely a test in stamina."
Courtesy Netflix
What is The Devil All the Time based on?
Donald Ray Pollock's debut novel of the same name was described as a "blood-soaked noir" by Esquire. According to the New York Times, which reviewed the book back in 2011, it's a dark, dark story — the opening scene is a crucifixion.
"The story begins with the return of a veteran, Willard Russell, from the Pacific island abattoir of World War II, where he has seen a fellow soldier skinned and crucified alive," the paper's review reads. "He carries this vision home, but as the novel proceeds and the lives of Willard's mother, his uncle, and especially his son carry forward, the Russell clan is beset on all sides by nightmares the equal of anything Willard experienced in combat."
Though the novel is set in Ohio and West Virginia, the film was shot in Alabama.
"It was a challenging shoot just because there were so many locations and we were really spread out over a large portion of northern Alabama," Antonio told EW. "The nice thing is Alabama hasn’t been filmed in very often, so it’s not as recognizable as some other places that have been filmed in and photographed thoroughly by various films and TV shows."
Is there a trailer?
Netflix released a trailer on August 13, 2020, about a month before the movie's debut. The film's tagline is: "Some people are just born to be buried."
When can I watch The Devil All the Time?
The Devil All the Time premiers on Netflix on September 16.
What's the deal with Robert Pattinson's accent in the movie?
If you were surprised by Robert Pattinson's accent in the movie, you weren't the only one. Pattinson also surprised everyone on set with his accent in the movie, according to the movie's director, Antonio Campos.
"Rob was impossible to get dialect coaching," Campos told Insider. "He just didn't want to do it. He was just adamant about figuring it out on his own. He would be like, 'I'm going to do this thing and that thing, with a little bit of this.'"
On the first day of shooting, Campos said, Pattinson revealed his high-pitched accent for the first time — which Campos gave him full reign on.
"I don't get worried about those things," the director said. "There was no way in my mind that he wasn't going to come on set with something bad. I might not have dug it, but it wasn't going to be bad. I'd rather have someone come with something weird that's a choice than something that isn't thought out. So I knew he would come with something interesting."
