BY GERRI MILLER
Staff Writer-Elmore-Autauga News
A movie filmed in Alabama with pivotal scenes shot in Elmore and Autauga counties now has a premiere date. “The Devil All the Time” will debut on Netflix worldwide on Sept. 16 and there will be plenty of action and horror in this midwestern gothic tale.
Several scenes for the new thriller were filmed in and on the grounds of the Pine Flat Presbyterian Church, which sits between Deatsville and Marbury on Alabama Highway 143. Other Alabama film locations included Birmingham, Montevallo, Anniston, Jacksonville, Helena, Pelham, Jasper, Bessemer, and Riverside.
The scenes shot in the Pine Flat church are meant to represent a rural area in West Virginia.
Tommy Fell, a location coordinator for the Alabama Film Office, said “The Devil All the Time” is the biggest film shot in Alabama since Tim Burton’s $70 million “Big Fish” filmed here in 2003.
The film stars Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan, Bill Skarsgard, Robert Pattinson, Riley Keogh, and several other well-known stars. The production company filmed some key scenes in the Deatsville church and the church grounds. During the filming, more than 14 vintage cars and trucks were parked on the church grounds and local extras hired to be a church congregation for the film were clad in vintage clothing.
The fact that the movie was filming at the Pine Flat church was not well known at the time, but the production company did hire as many as 50 residents from the River Region as extras. Most of the crew stayed in Montgomery during the filming, but some crew members stayed in Prattville hotels.
The movie is based on Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel of the same name. The story is told across two decades following a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher, and a corrupt local sheriff. Here is the synopsis for “The Devil All the Time” from IMDB:
“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.”
You may recognize many of the cast members from their roles in other films. Most people may recognize Pattinson from the Twilight film series and his newer film “The Lighthouse.” Skarsgard played the clown Pennywise in the film “It.” Tom Holland has played Spider Man in numerous movies. Sebastian Stan is the Winter Soldier in the “Captain America.” Riley Keogh, the granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, played in “Magic Mike” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Antonio Campos directed the movie from a script he co-wrote with his brother Paulo Campos. Jake Gyllenhaal was one of the producers.
A trailer has not yet been released, but we will post it when it drops in a few weeks. See more photos of the church below.
