Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Best friends Dominique (Alexz Johnson) and Ursula (Magda Apanowicz) find a mysterious book in the cemetery. It's full of empty pages. Ursula uses it as a diary. She writes a wish for the mean cheerleader Heather (Miriam McDonald) to break her legs and it happens the next day.This is a TV movie and it looks it. That's one of its weakest. It needs bigger production value and better people to create a more compelling style. The horror parts were just weak. It has a pretty good concept, and Magda Apanowicz is great as the bullied Ursula who turns evil. She's the best thing in the movie. Killing her off midway thru is the worst mistake they make. After that Alexz Johnson just couldn't hold the whole movie together. The gang to get the book back just doesn't have the Scooby Doo vibe. The movie just falls apart after Ursula.

This is a great film which will keep you glued to your chair and you will enjoy the story which deals with young sexy teenage gals who are in a class by themselves and the other teenage girls who do not have the looks and act like wall flowers at a dance. There is one girl who is always picked on by the other gals and she finds a very mysterious book which looks like a diary only with blank pages. This gal begins to write in this book about things she wants it to do for her against another gal and certain things do occur. There are other girls who obtain this so called diary and it starts to change their lives and causes many problems. This is a film you should not miss, it is very interesting and entertaining. Enjoy.

"Devil's Diary" is a lot more fun than what would be expected.**SPOILERS**Being picked on as outsiders, Ursula Wilson, (Magda Apanowicz) and Dominique, (Alexz Johnson) grow tired of fellow students Heather Grey, (Miriam McDonald) Lisa, (Laura Konechny) Georgia, (Deanna Casaluce) Kyle Henderson, (Aleks Holtz) and Joey Abama, (Moses Tang) thinking they are better than everyone else. When they start to realize that the group is succumbing to very weird accidents, she reveals that they're coming true after she wrote them in a magical book she found in a graveyard. Becoming consumed with it to the point of excluding everything else, some of them discover what's going on and steal the book to use on them. Determining the true Satanic power of the book, they all race to stop it before they succumb to it's power.The Good News: This is a lot better than expected and has a lot of good parts to it. The fact that it feels like it's always got something to do is great and really appreciative. It's got a lot of really good confrontations and accidents spread throughout the film due to the writings that go in the book. It's really nice to be able to count on it having a lot of them to keep the film from being boring. The opening one, where a series of weird accidents lead to a car crushing a student's legs, one of the better ones, the slow-build to the chemical blow-out is sheer genius and there's also the really nice fight at the pool-hall, which has the one victim knocking out their eyes with a pool-cue. It's quite fun for these points, but the real fun comes from it's body count scenes. They've all got great set-ups, from the tense with the one backstage of the auditorium to the freaky with the vomiting in the bathroom and the thrilling with the schoolyard confrontation and more in between the film's really great kills. There's a pair of scissors stabbed in the throat, a stage-light dropped onto a neck, being strangled with a long cord, a strangling and another set on fire, which are all really great as well as the other ones in here. The last part that works is the incredibly fun opening to this, with the cemetery opening being really great and plenty of fun. The setting is awesome, the action is good and there's even a cheap scare thrown in. These here work for the film.The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot really wrong with this one. The main thing with this one is that it throws in the morality angle into the film at the very end. It had been going along nicely with the story of a demonic diary and the race to stop it's destructive effects rather than anything involving the morality lesson, which really halts the story in it's tracks since it comes in with absolutely no warning or reason for the change. The other thing wrong is the really irritating tactic of switching to a shaking camera whenever something was happening, usually in the form of a shaking camera but a few other tricks were tried. By being there during all the good moments, it really ruins the film's best scenes. These here are the film's biggest flaws.The Final Verdict: A lot more enjoyable than it should be, this was a nicely surprising entry with a lot going for it and very little to stop it. Give it a shot if you're into this kind of genre, a fan of the creative cast or find this one interesting, while those who aren't that big on the style should heed caution.Rated R: Violence and Language

Alexz Johnson, Magda Apanowicz, and Deanna Casaluce head off a competent cast in Devil's Diary, which premiered on Lifetime Movie Network tonight. When two high school girls (Johnson and Apanowicz) inadvertently stumble upon an evil diary (in a cemetery no less!), one of them becomes increasingly obsessed with getting revenge on their nasty classmates once she learns the diary can make things happen...very bad things.I enjoyed this movie--it held my attention by and large, though I did grow tired of hearing, "the book" repeated over and over. Plus, there is one totally gross scene. Otherwise, it is pretty fun. Somewhat typical high school scenario with the "popular" kids putting down any one else they desire. All of the actors do a great job and the atmosphere and scenery dovetail with the story. Check it out. 7/10