The Diabolical
| The Diabolical | |
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| Directed by | Alistair Legrand |
| Produced by | Ross Dinerstein |
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| Music by | Ian Hultquist |
| Cinematography | John Frost |
| Edited by | Blair Miller |
| Distributed by | XLrator Media |
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Release date
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Running time
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86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $84,259 |
The Diabolical is a 2015 American science fiction horror film directed by Alistair Legrand and written by Legrand and Luke Harvis. It stars Ali Larter as a single mother who battles evil forces in her house. It premiered at SXSW in March 2015 and, after being released internationally, received a limited release in the US in October 2015.
Madison, a single mother, lives with her two children, Jacob and Haley, in a suburban home. Madison's financial difficulties prompt her to consider declaring bankruptcy. Jacob was involved in a fight six months prior and now sees a counselor to evaluate his state of mind. Madison is dating her son's science tutor, Nikolai. The family experiences paranormal occurrences that manifest as a bloody and bound apparition and a bald man. Although Madison hires parapsychologists and psychics to investigate the haunting, none can help her. A man representing a research lab called CamSET makes an offer on their house in the hopes of developing the area. One night while the bald apparition attempts to harm the children, they attempt to flee the house, but the children become deathly ill whenever they leave. Madison decides that they all have to stay in the house until a solution can be found.
Nikolai arrives and witnesses one of the apparitions. They set up scientific monitoring equipment to find a solution to the paranormal phenomenon. The bald man materializes and attacks the family, causing them to run upstairs, where the bald man's fingers are severed in a doorway. While analyzing the footage captured of the bald man, Madison discovers that he is wearing a shirt from CamSET. After searching online she finds a reference to Project ECHO and that Nikolai was previously employed by CamSET. Nikolai explains that they were working on teleportation with human subjects, but he left over ethical concerns. The project was at least forty years until completion, so Nikolai deduces that the bald man must be coming from the future. Madison and Nikolai set traps and make improvised weapons in hopes of killing the bald man when he rematerializes.
They beat the bald man into submission. The police arrive but are quickly killed when the bald man reawakens, and Nikolai is rendered unconscious. Madison attempts to protect her children in the basement but is fatally wounded. Her son receives a cut above his lip that instantly appears on the bald man's face, and Madison realizes that the bald man is her son Jacob from the future. Nikolai regains consciousness and shoots the bald man in the back with one of the dead police officers' guns. Madison lies next to the bald man and is transported to the future. There it is explained that her son was captured trying to burn the lab down because of something CamSET did to his mother. He was subsequently lobotomized and used as a test subject in Project ECHO forty years in the future. Madison is healed and sent back to her own time, where she stares straight ahead while her son embraces her.
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Wikipedia