Yo, Philly in the News
Phillyist Framed Returns!
Whole Hog Is All Heart
Playlist Rewind: AFI at the Factory
Hey Man, Can't We All Just Get Along?
Films: Evil
Future Screenings: Saturday, April 8th at The Bridge 5:15PM
If Evil taught me anything, it's that the Greek people are very calm & collected in the face in adversity. Sure, a young teenage girl might scream when attacked, openly mourn her family and even weep at the loss of a fallen comrade; but she's a mere child. The adults fare much better. When the apocalypse comes, they respond by continuing to watch the soccer match, sleeping peaceful in parking garages, dining amiably in abandoned restaurants, and when necessary, turning into effective, quippy, zombie killing machines. Definitely a vacation spot to keep in mind if you're expecting a zombie invasion.
As a zombie movie, Evil is inconsistent. Purportedly Greece's freshman zombie effort, Evil relies on a number of partially-decayed chestnuts to maintain audience interest: the cheap scare, the dutch angle, the monster's point-of-view cam, and the theremin (well, the synthesized theremin...I rather suspect someone programmed a theremin option into their old Casio keyboard for parts of the soundtrack). I believe a zombie movie should be frightening, funny, or (ideally) frightening and funny. Unfortunately, Evil is rarely scary, seldomlly funny, and for a film where the cast was quite literally in danger of losing their lives, the plot and action moved at a painfully slow pace (really, the movie is only an hour and twenty minutes, but it felt like 3 hours).
Where Evil succeeds, however, is in not taking itself too seriously; it knows very well it's a cheesy horror movie. So when the Zombie vs. Humans scenes came down, it delivered what was expected: loads of make-up (and occasionally, computer) effects, elaborate zombie and/or human deaths, more decapitations than one can shake a stick at, and buckets of blood (including the requisite number of arterial sprays). It was good for a few giggles and groans, but overall it was barely worth staying up late for. My festival rating: Fair
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