Interesting Facts of Movie The Devil All the Time (2020)

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Summary of Story of The Devil All the Time

Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There's Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can't save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his "prayer log." There's Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, who troll America's highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There's the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte's orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

Interesting Facts of The Devil All the Time

  • Robert Pattinson took inspiration for his character by watching videos of evangelical preachers and pop-stars from the time period.
  • Robert Pattinson didn't work with a dialect coach and crafted his high-pitched Southern drawl on his own. The actor hid his accent from everyone - including director Antonio Campos - until day one of filming. Other actors sent Campos recordings of the voices they were working on - but not Pattinson, preferring to rehearse by himself and getting self-conscious by being judged before actually standing in front of the camera.
  • Chris Evans was originally cast as Sheriff Lee Bodecker, but had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts. His Marvel co-star Sebastian Stan took over the role.
  • The screenplay was adapted from the 2011 novel "The Devil All the Time" from author Donald Ray Pollock, who also voiced the narration in the film. It was the first time he has done any narrating, not even doing the voice work for his own audio books.
  • Shot on 35 mm film, which is rare for Netflix to greenlight.
  • Actor Harry Melling dumped real orb-weaver spiders on his head.
  • Despite top billing, Tom Holland doesn't appear until 46 minutes into the film.
  • Principal photography took place in Alabama during February, March and April 2019.
  • Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson both co-starred in The Lost City of Z (2016).
  • Tom Holland is only 6 years younger than his on-screen father, Bill Skarsgård and only 8 years younger than his on-screen mother, Haley Bennett.
  • Robert Pattinson and Harry Melling both co-starred in The Lost City of Z (2016) and Waiting for the Barbarians (2019). Both received their big breaks in the Harry Potter series, but did not appear in the same movie.
  • Tom Holland and Sebastian Stan have both starred in multiple MCU projects, including 3 MCU movies together: Captain America Civil War (2016), Avengers Infinity War (2018) and Avengers Endgame (2019). The film was also produced by Holland's Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) co-star Jake Gyllenhaal. Additionally, Robert Pattinson is a DC star, playing the titular role in The Batman (2021).
  • Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska both co-starred in Maps to the Stars (2014) and Damsel (2018).
  • The ending alludes to the fact that no matter how many good deeds Arvin undertakes in order to protect those that he loves, he is on a path of self-destruction that he cannot avoid in that the hippie who picks him up bears a striking resemblance to Charles Manson and drives exactly the same VW camper van that Manson was known to have owned and used to pick up wandering travellers. Having witnessed just what the character has endured through his life, the viewer by this time should be fully behind him emotionally, and him falling asleep in the presence of 'Manson' leaves the viewer devastated at what could happen to him next.
  • Russell's 1948-1950 Ford truck has a late-model steering column, steering wheel, and column shift for an automatic transmission. It's seen early when Russell drives over to beat up the poachers. That truck would have had a manual transmission and a very different steering wheel.
  • At 37:16 in which Harry Melling's character Roy Laferty kills his wife Helen Hatton played by Mia Wasikowska, he stabs her in the neck with a sharpened screwdriver, with the metal end facing outwards from the thumb area. In the next shot showing her and his reaction, the screwdriver's point is held opposite, with the metal end protruding from the bottom of his grip.

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