By all accounts, Vikki's (Emily Killian) life ought to be good one, she's happily married to Marshall (Matthew Ashford), a successful lawyer, she lives in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood, and the only things threatening her are her nightmares ... nightmares so vivid though that she at one time wakes up in the middle of one to realize she's strangling Marshall, taking him for a masked killer. Marshall promises to help her through whatever she's going through, but Vikki's nightmares only get more vivid, and she starts to see the masked killer during her waking hours, too, him as well as a little girl (Brooklyn Robinson), who's seemingly trying to tell her something. And then, from one moment to the next, Marshall just disappears, and Vikki's last memory of that is that they were hugging. Now the police are quick to suspect foul play and have a couple of detectives (Isaac Rhino, Ewart Chin) placed outside the house for protection and observation. Vikki's parents (Judi Evans, Braxton Davis) meanwhile decide to move in with her for the time being, and also call in Robbie (Alexander Man), a high school friend of hers who had a big crush on her back when and who's a psychotherapist now. She starts seeing him for treatment, and they're making some progress, as he uncovers that she's forever haunted by her real father, a very violent man who committed suicide decades ago for her to find him, and she thinks she has inherited his thirst for violence. And thus she also blames herself for her dad's disappearance. However, that the treatment is a full success couldn't be further from the truth, as once Vikki tries to kill herself on Robbie's toilet, plus her visions of the little girl get more and more frequent. Robbie however doesn't think Vikki's a violent person - but once people start turning up dead, there's a chance that this is a misconception stemming from the feelings Robbie has for Vikki ...

Now ok, in writing The Devil in My Heart's storyline looks a little forced, but on film it actually is a pretty cool psycho thriller, inasmuch as it plays with genre motives but refuses to follow any tired old genre formula, instead uses genre expectations to surprise the viewer, and by not just explaining everything away it successfully disorients its audience, to the effect that the tension rarely lets up in this one, only augmented by a suspense-heavy direction, while a solid ensemble keeps things believable. And the sum of it all is good thriller entertainment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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