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Devil in the Dust

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Devil in the Dust

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Summary

Widowed doctor Bender (Guy Pearce) agrees to escort freed slave Sarah (DeWanda Wise) and her daughter (Emily Katherine Ford) across the wilderness. Mother and child seek an audience with Preacher Ross (Bill Pullman) in the hope he can exorcise the demon that resides in the girl. The tyke can kill with a touch of her bare hands and she wears gloves to prevent a rapidly escalating body count in a supernatural western directed by Ned Crowley.

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Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

Jayne Nelson

Guy Pearce is reliably excellent in this supernatural western from writer/director Ned Crowley, which is set among the scorched deserts of Arizona in 1849. Pearce plays Bender, a drug-addled doctor who is hired to transport freed slave Sarah (DeWanda Wise) to another town. She's desperate to find a cure for her little blonde-haired daughter (Emily Katherine Ford), whose touch is deadly... literally. Sarah believes she is possessed by the Devil, and hopes that a preacher (Bill Pullman) in another town will cure her. Their parched, dusty journey is riddled with horrors, from scalp-snatching Native Americans to deadly bandits and traumatised gold prospectors. Pearce, as always, fully commits, spending the film bathed in sweat and blood. Wise is underused but superb and, through it all, the little (unnamed) girl shines like a beacon of innocence - until she removes her life-saving mittens, that is. Sure, the script meanders and the dialogue occasionally gets caught up in its own importance, but overall this is an absorbing and unsettlingly gory odyssey.

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5.6/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameBenderGuy PearceSarahDeWanda WiseRossBill PullmanShakespeareRaoul Max TrujilloWhiteyJamie NeumannEdwardJack AlcottMaggieJoanna CassidyThe GirlEmily Katherine FordStantonJosh McDermittCottonCharlie Talbert

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Crew

rolenameDirectorNed CrowleyWriterNed CrowleyWriterDavid Henri MartinProducerNed CrowleyProducerZori DavidkovaProducerWes HagerProducerDavid Henri MartinComposerBrooke BlairComposerWill BlairDirector of photographyJustin HamiltonEditorThijs BazelmansCastingDavid GuglielmoCastingFarrah WestProduction designerLorus Allen

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Details

Languages

English

Guidance

Violence, swearing, sexual references, drug abuse

Formats

Colour

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