Watching and reviewing JWoww’s of Jersey Shore’s feature length directorial debut was not on my 2024 bingo card, but here I am, and here we go. I have to admit, while I’ve fallen off the series in the last few seasons, once upon a time I was a rather loyal viewer of Jersey Shore and it was hard not to be a fan of JWoww’s no nonsense attitude given her often insufferable housemates. Her film Devon hits Screambox this week and has JWoww AKA Jenni Farley both writing and directing the Horror debut, which comes in at lean 72 minutes and feels like it pulls from a lot of familiar situations and characters for its story for previous fans of the director.
First and foremost the found footage film has JWoww borrowing a page from Jersey Shore – you have a group of five individuals all from different backgrounds who are summoned to an abandoned mental hospital. They are then armed with video cameras to document their experience by the parents of the namesake young girl, Devon, who is rumored to be still there. If they can get some sort of proof she’s still there they stand to walk away from the experience with $20,000, which does what few of these films do offer an incentive, when you wonder why they’re still filming and tuck in for the night in the building. Wisely, Farley spends as much time digging into the clashing of personalities as she does the peculiar events and goings on that begin to transpire throughout the night.
The film’s premise, a nod to the director’s favorite horror film – The Blair Witch Project, mashes up found footage with a fictional narrative wraparound, that feels like an unnecessary afterthought. While the found footage bits while exploring the hospital are creepy as hell, it’s this framing device that feels a bit more green in execution than the rest of the piece. That being said, as a whole Devon works surprisingly well. At 72 minutes the film manages to keep the scares coming as we watch the cast inhabiting the familar reality TV archetypes spiral and turn in one another just like Shore. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, because it’s fictional characters, we can take joy and satisfaction in their misfortune.
They say write what you know, so when you take someone who obviously is well aware of themselves and has survived similar experiences under this reality TV lens, but without ghosts, you get an authenticity that shows an understanding of the medium. That helped Farley present the group dynamic in a bit of a more believable way, because while I’ve seen more than a few riffs on this formula, Devon is one of the few films that doesn’t feel forced or like a parody. This for me allowed the supernatural bits to be even more effective, because you’re locked in thanks to that group dynamic. This is as much thanks to the actors and script, as it is the reality TV’s star’s over a decade of experience.
So as a found footage fan I dug Devon and I definitely appreciate a good found footage film more than most. I think that’s why we have so many terrible films in the sub-genre and so few film’s that actually work, because it’s not simply cheap shaky cam and a creepy premise. You need to have some good lore and engaging characters, or you’re not invested in their journey, like here. Now I will admit here, part of the fun is watching bad things happen to these folks, I think that’s part of the point, and some bit of wish fulfillment on the director’s side. But that personal connection is what makes Devon a solid watch and definitely will have me interested in what the director tackles next.
