Poor M. Night Shyamalan. After the one-two-three punch that was The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, the young auteur, once branded the “next Spielberg” by Time Magazine, has endured a painfully long streak of bad-to-terrible films – namely The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender. With the release of Devil he now must face a hard truth – that his best film in years is the one he did not write or direct.

Those duties belong to John Erick Dowdle, the imaginative brain behind 2008’s contrived, but freakishly thrilling Quarantine. Dowdle swoops in and, with the help of screenwriter Brian Nelson – who penned the delicious vampire fest 30 Days of Night and the equally tasty Hard Candy – molds Shyamalan’s basic premise into a 75-minute thriller that never lets up. The swift running time ensures a slick experience – like an extended Twilight Zone episode, Devil cuts through the BS and arrives at its purpose directly. You don’t have time to laugh at the proceedings – you’re too busy racing the film to its dramatic conclusion.

The first trailer, poster and images from Universal’s supernatural thriller Devil have been released.  The film stars Chris Messina, Geoffrey Arend, Logan Marshall-Green, Bojana Novakovic, Jenny O’Hara, Bokeem Woodbine, and Jacob Vargas  and it’s from a story by M. Night Shyamalan.  Of course when Universal decided to make the project, Shyamalan’s name meant more than it does now (The Last Airbender).

Saying that, the trailer for Devil makes it seem like a pretty cool thriller about a group of people trapped in an elevator with the Devil.   But I’m not going to be fooled again by anything with M. Night’s name attached to it.  From now on, I’m of the opinion everything he does is crap until he makes a good movie.  If this works, I’ll take him off my shit list.  But if it’s bad….

Hit the jump to check out the trailer, images and poster.  Devil gets released September 17, 2010.

Variety reports that Chris Messina (“Julie and Julia”) will star in the Dowdle Brothers’ (“Quarantine) “Devil” which is based on an M. Night Shyamalan story.  The script is by Brian Nelson (“30 Days of Night”) so Messina has really allied himself with a team of winners.  Details of the plot are being kept under wraps because it’s super secret and everyone wants to know what the movie is about because Shyamalan, Nelson, and the Dowdles are an artistic triumvirate unlike anything cinema has ever known.  Production on “Devil” is set to being in Toronto on October 26^th and hopefully no one will ever tell Messina about IMDb and how he might have to carry the entire movie.