Devil’s Den (2006) – A Movie A Day 2021 #6
Devil’s Den (2006) – A Movie A Day 2021 #6
Have you ever wanted to watch From Dusk till Dawn, but didn’t really want to watch From Dusk till Dawn? Then Devil’s Den might be just the movie for you!
Devil’s Den is a fun little horror comedy heavily inspired by From Dusk till Dawn. It’s so inspired by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’ masterful mashup of crime and vampires, that Devil’s Den has to go out of its way to explain how the not-vampire strippers in its movie are different from the totally-vampire strippers that inhabit the Titty Twister. But let me back up a bit.
Devil’s Den stars Kelly Hu, Ken Foree, and Devon Sawa. We first meet Sawa’s character, Quinn, as he’s driving back from Mexico with a suitcase full of Spanish Fly in the back set and his best friend, Nick, in the passenger seat. After a semi-lengthy yet entertaining conversation where Nick doubts the effectiveness of their cache of drugs, Quinn decides the best course of action is to prove the Spanish Fly’s effectiveness by drugging some strippers with the pills and reaping the rewards. This, my friends, is our hero of the story. Well, sort of. Quinn’s role as main character is taken over by two much more likable characters we meet in shortly after this opening scene.
Quinn and Nick pull into a strip club named Devil’s Den, and as they scope out the place for two victims, two other people are scoping out the place for reasons that remain a mystery until later in the movie. One of those people is Leonard, played by Ken Foree, and the other is Caitlin, played by Kelly Hu. Both Leonard and Caitlin are sitting alone at separate tables, and they’re not there for the beers or the breasts. They’re both looking for something or someone, but they don’t begin to reveal their true intentions until Quinn’s plan goes awry.
Quinn slips a pill into one of the dancer’s drinks, and at first the Spanish Fly seems to be working. The drugged dancer, Jezebel, played by Dawn Olivieri, becomes aggressive in her requests to take Quinn to a secluded area for a “private dance.” Quinn, of course, is thrilled, and he’s led down a hallway and out the back door of the building. Quinn starts to get nervous, and rightfully so, because Jezebel has gotten so worked up by the Spanish Fly that she can’t control herself anymore. Jezebel reveals her true monstrous face as she claws at Quinn and bites at his neck. Luckily for Quinn, Caitlin was following him and Jezebel, and even luckier for Quinn, Caitlin has two pistols that she unloads into Jezebel.
When Caitlin and Quinn make it back into the Devil’s Den, all hell has broken loose. The strippers have all turned into what I assumed were vampires, and they are tearing the customers apart. The only person besides Caitlin who knows how to fight is Leonard, and he’s swinging a katana around, chopping off heads left and right.
So that’s the setup, two criminals stop at a strip club that’s infested with stripper-monsters, and everyone who survives the initial massacre has to band together in order to survive. Sounds a lot like From Dusk till Dawn, right? Well it’s totally different, because Leonard explains that the strippers aren’t vampires, they’re ghouls. They’re not trying to drink blood, they’re trying to eat flesh. So yeah, totally different.
I’m just having a bit of fun with the plot though. I actually did enjoy Devil’s Den, and beyond the basic setup, the movie is pretty different as it goes on. We learn about who Caitlin and Leonard are and why they’re there, and the star power of Kelly Hu and Ken Foree absolutely helped sell me on the goofiness of the story. I immediately liked then, but I never got to where I liked Quinn. He is a whiney, selfish douche who got into the whole mess by trying to drug a woman and take advantage of her. He has a bit of a redemption arc, but by that point in the movie I was hoping for a random ghoul attack to take him out. But two out of three isn’t bad, and Caitlin and Leonard (and there ridiculous backgrounds) more than made up for Quinn.
Plus, you know, stripper monsters are pretty much always fun. Sure, it’s a bit of a rip-off of From Dusk till Dawn, but I don’t care. A fun movie is a fun movie even if I’ve kind of seen it before. Also, as I understand it, Zoe Bell doubles for one of the ghouls who has an extended fight scene with Kelly Hu, and that is super fun to watch. So yeah, I’d recommend Devil’s Den for people who enjoy silly horror movies with a fair amount of blood and boobs.
Devil’s Den – Trailer from Ken Ohara on Vimeo.