Aarcflick

 At times, this slow-burning indie hillbilly thriller feels like a heavy pass through the genre. It is set in the Appalachian Mountains, where a tight-knit community of clans lives by its own rules; a lawless journey in which a lonely woman faces the humblest family on the mountain to protect her loved ones, with the banjos playing the score. Not exactly strong on originality or authenticity. But what The Devil to Pay has going for it is a performance of real emotional strength from Danielle Deadwyler. Deadwyler plays Lemon Cassidy, a farmer eking out a living with her husband and her young son. Life is hard, and it gets even harder when Lemon's husband goes missing while he's up to his neck in trouble with the Runions, a terrifying local family headed by matriarch Tommy (Catherine Dyer). We meet Tommy in her kitchen, all the sweetness of apple pie and giving baking tips while threatening to kill Lemon's son. As a character, she's a little too gimmicky, or maybe Dyer is...