If you haven't watched The Devil All the Time, then for the love of God turn back now. Spoilers ahead!
In The Devil All the Time, what you see isn't always what you get. Self-proclaimed holy men lead lives of sin. Officers of the law are more concerned with protecting themselves than the communities they've pledged to serve. Hypocrisy, corruption, and violence run rampant, and everyone is full of secrets.
That's true of the film's characters, and it's true of the movie, too. The Devil All the Time, which tells the story of a young orphan named Arvin and all the sordid characters he comes across, is stuffed full of small details and odd little Easter eggs. You may not notice them while you watch, but rest assured that each one goes a long way toward making The Devil All the Time's Midwestern Gothic landscape all the more realistic - and all the more horrifying.
These aren't the kind of details you'd typically look out for when watching The Devil All the Time - the story itself is gripping enough that it'll consume all of your attention. But trust us when we say you'd miss 'em if they weren't there.
The Devil All the Time takes place in two communities. One is Coal Creek, West Virginia, where the Russell family comes from, and where Arvin spends his teenage years. The other is Knockemstiff, a rural community in Ohio's Ross County. That's where Willard and Charlotte settle after getting married, and where crooked sheriff Lee Bodecker runs his patrols.
Believe it or not, but Knockemstiff is an actual place. It happens to be where The Devil All the Time author Donald Ray Pollock grew up, and it's also the title of his award-winning short story collection. In fact, in the Devil All the Time novel, Knockemstiff isn't mentioned at all. In the book, all of the action in Ohio takes place in Meade, a small town about half an hour's drive away. In the movie, the diner where Carl meets Sandy and Willard meets Charlotte is in Meade, but the rest of the proceedings have been moved further south. The change from Meade to Knockemstiff for the film is a tribute to Pollock and the book that put him on the map, and it's well-deserved. After all, without Knockemstiff, The Devil All the Time wouldn't exist.
Take a trip to Knockemstiff | 0:00
The horrors of war | 2:02
Pokey LaFarge, the living throwback | 3:06
The voice of the Creator | 4:19
Charlton comics give you more! | 5:39
Family ties | 6:40
That war-strained land | 7:18
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Sinister characters converge around a young man devoted to protecting those he loves in a postwar backwoods town teeming with corruption and brutality.