M. Night Shyamalan's up to his old spooky tricks again. In Devil, five strangers trapped in an elevator begin to experience some horrifying events that lead them to believe one of them isn't totally… human. The prolific Shyamalan came up with the film's concept, and passed the reins on to director John Erick Dowdle and Executive Producer Drew Dowdle (the duo behind The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine), to complete the first instalment of his Night Chronicles series. The two brothers recently spoke with me about bringing this supernatural thriller to life. Check out our conversation after the jump.

Did you have a "pinch me" moment when Shyamalan approached you for Devil?

John Erick Dowdle: Oh yeah! We got word from our agent that he loved The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine and wanted to meet us the next day in Philadelphia. We're like "Seriously?" We flew to Philadelphia and sitting across the table talking to him about this project was so bizarre for us. We took the treatment, ran with it, and thought it was awesome. We called our moms, going "You'll never believe where we are! We're meeting in Philadelphia to talk to M. Night Shyamalan!"

Drew Dowdle: It was funny because I was at a wedding in Miami and John was in Los Angeles. I got the call and we actually didn't fly out together. We met in the airport in Philly and were like, "We're going to M. Night's farm in Philly! This is crazy!"

Besides the pedigree behind this movie, what elements immediately appealed to you?

John: We loved the idea of playing in an enclosed space and really developing that by trying to find interesting ways to work within these confines. The thing that always intrigues me is if I have no idea how to shoot it and I'm like "Let's do it!" This was a huge challenge. How do you keep this interesting over the course of a movie? It seems so difficult to do. Personally, that's what made me want to do it.

Drew: We were very careful not to make it a Christian movie or anything like that. The whole idea of good versus evil and this notion of a supreme evil have always been very intriguing to us. The Omen,The Exorcist, Emily Rose, and Angel Heart are some of our favorites. This movie could be in that zone of playing on everyone's fear of the devil, as well as being confined in a small space with strangers, which can suddenly be threatening. We really liked the investigation element too, but the chance to work with Night was a dream scenario.

Devil mainly takes place in one enclosed space. How does that claustrophobia enhance or heighten the tension?

John: One thing is we wanted to shoot the elevator in a different way than anything else in the film. We decided to shoot everything in the elevator subjectively.  For every scene in the elevator, let's take one character such as Sarah. We start the scene in the elevator with a close-up of her and then we shoot everything she looks at. The whole thing is told from her perspective, her close-ups are telling what's happening. We didn't want to just shoot over the shoulders, over the shoulders close-ups, wide shots... We didn't want to shoot in that style. It would be really dull if you could see everything as opposed to if you are one of the people in that elevator for every one of the scenes; it would enhance that feeling of being claustrophobic, trapped, and figuring out who is doing all this stuff. It was nice making use of some of our Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine tricks.

If an elevator suddenly malfunctioned, I would chalk it up to mechanical difficulties. As the story unfolds, what are some of the signs this is literally a ride from hell?

John: Death. Murder. People die. The elevator breaks down further and goes into a worse and worse place. First and foremost, people are getting killed, which is a pretty good indication that something is very wrong, whether or not it's the Devil. It's bad.

Drew: One thing you can see in the trailer is when you're in the elevator, you just look at the floor and not process the people around you. At one point, you're forced to interact, but it's still very calm. We love the turn it can take in the dark where you don't know who did it. Suddenly, everyone is a threat.

Was part of the fun throwing out all the red herrings and casting doubts about the identities of who these people truly are?

John: Oh, absolutely. Earlier in the scripts, this is one of the things Drew started talking about. He loved the spotlight of suspicion. If you're suspicious all the time, it's not a very good movie. However, if we can beam that spotlight from one person to the next or every time we come into the elevator it shifts, it would keep people on their toes and guessing who's doing this. That would be a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Drew: We were really determined not to let it be five people scared, screaming at each other, and bickering through the whole movie. We wanted to see people turn on each other very deliberately or have them gang up on each other. 

What role do the people outside the elevator serve?

John: There's two investigations happening.  There's the life-and-death one inside the elevator amongst the people trying to figure who's doing it. Outside the elevator, there's a Philly cop played by Chris Messina, doing anything he can think of to try and stop this. He's following every logical step in trying to stop this thing. There's interplay between the two. He's also trying to figure out who these people in the elevator are. Why are they here in the building? We as the audience get to learn a lot more about the characters as a result of him.

Drew: Chris' character is really like our audience who comes in and believes real is real and unreal is unreal. The initial suggestion of what might be happening is ridiculous and implausible but as the evidence starts to stack up, it starts to potentially support being possible. He's really the audience's eyes and ears.

So by the end of the movie, do we actually get some answers? Do we learn why these specific people, why here and now, or is it simply wrong place, wrong time?

John: You learn why they are there. By the end of the movie, all questions will be answered. We leave nothing hanging.

Drew: Those characters are strangers when they step foot on the elevator. We learn a lot about them over the course of the movie, but it all unfolds in the elevator.

After doing the hardcore Quarantine, what were some of the challenges of making a creepy PG-13 film?

John: It was interesting. No one wants to see Quarantine rated  PG-13. With this, we would have to push a PG-13. It would have been a soft R which would have been a mistake. Frankly, we were excited by the challenge. Poughkeepsie and Quarantine were both rated R, so we wanted to make a PG-13 movie that was scary as hell. How do you go about doing that? You show less and hear more. You have to do more with tricks, perception, and off-camera sounds. It feels more real in a way. You're a character and you're looking through people trying to resuscitate someone. It feels like you're right in that space versus cut to blood squirting out. Frankly, something that really excited us was doing a balls-to-the-walls PG-13 scary movie.

Drew: The script didn't lend itself to an R rating. It would have been a very soft R which would have been a mistake. We get to play off a horribly violent moment but by holding on a close up on another character witnessing it, that can be so much more interesting than seeing the full monty.

There's already speculation as to who the Devil is. Are you worried moviegoers will be expecting some big twist?

John : That's part of the fun of the movie. I'm sure they'll be looking for clues and for the whodunit of it all. It's a fun game to play.

Drew:  When we signed up for the movie, that was the whole thing. We hope people go into it guessing.

Considering this is a Shyamalan treatment and a screenplay by Brian Nelson, how much freedom did you have with the material?

John: We had quite a bit. Even though it was a studio film, the studio was like, "Oh, they've got it covered." Night really pushed us in the most un-studio way. "Don't worry about the studio; they'll be fine. Don't play defense." For us, it was really cool to have someone tell us to go for it. "I want you to be edgy! Do crazy stuff!" For us, that was great.     

Drew: Story-wise, we had a lot of input. It's a very complex screenplay, so it was a collaboration for sure. Then when we were on set, we realized some things were working better than others. It was always up to us to figure out new ideas and present them to Night. He was a great sounding board but it was really up to us during production.