• Is it age appropriate?

  About our ratings

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  Not age appropriate for kids under 13, age appropriate for kids over 16; suggested age 13.

• Is it any good?

  3.0

• Common Sense says

  Old-school horror, complete with spiders, clowns.

Why We Rated This for Ages 13–16

What to watch out for

• Messages:

  Reggie borrows a book from her employer without telling him. Reggie takes care of her younger brother after her mother deserts the family. Aaron charges other students for writing their term papers. Aaron and Reggie try to withstand their fears; Reggie lets a wolf spider climb on her arm. Possessed Henry tears out the fur on his favorite stuffed animal, saying, "Did that hurt?" Reggie talks back to her father.
• Violence:

  Plenty of horror violence, but most with a dreamlike quality. As a punishment, a father lashes his 10-year-old son to a cross in a field, leaving him overnight in December. Deaths, including a babysitter, a hamster, birds smashed with a baseball bat, a man sealed in a room and left to die, a possessed teen who drowns. Plus mentions of arson (with children as causalities), a serial killer (who drinks the blended blood and brains of a victim), kidnapping, and waking nightmares of giant spiders and blood and organs spewing from someone's mouth. In an evil dream-carnival all sorts of horrors exist: children with no tongues, decapitated heads to be shot at as a game. Some fighting with knives and a bone saw and a scene of a demon baby feeding on its mother's blood and flesh, ripping out through her abdomen.
• Sex:

  Not an issue.
• Language:

  "Hell," "p---y-boy," "ass," "damn," "asshole," "bitch," "bastard."
• Consumerism:

  Not an issue.
• Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

  To trick their father, Henry says he thinks Reggie and Aaron are high.

What Parents Need to Know

About The Devouring

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