Quite simply, Yorgos Noussias’s Evil is the by-the-numbers zombie flick. To state that it is rote and uninspired is issuing the work benefit of the doubt. Granted, in respect to zombie gore, it does fulfill its promise to readily spar with its European counterparts of three decades prior, yet does just that and nothing else. In short, the often hollow plots of the Italian gore fests become highly insightful explorations of the human predicament when placed alongside Noussias’s film.
Admittedly, Evil does possess a few interesting aspects, such as a subtle, succinct, and socially-astute theme of apathy leading to zombism at the open of the film. Commendably, as the then-benign carriers of the disease stare soporifically at a soccer game, indifferent to the conversations and concerns of family and friends, we cut to and fro between the three characters who mumble incoherently about their experiences within an ominous cave earlier in the day, thus creating a fascinating and uncanny eeriness. However, the motif is neither explored or sustained after the infection begins to spread across Athens.
In so doing, Noussias sadly leads his audience into a false sense of reassurance and promise. Oftentimes when a work begins flaccidly, the audience is not disappointed when the film proceeds to no effective ends. However, after a solid opening sequence prior to the outbreak, the descent of Evil is monumental, leaving its viewers crushed in the wake of a comparable follow through despite the filmmakers’ attempts at cinematographic variety by way of 1970s spliced frames which house no technical or aesthetic purpose (unlike the septa lens, through which most of the film is shot, lending the feature an appropriate air of pastel depression) as the ironic, wry humor–though fitting for the absurd predicament–fails to aide the overall value of the work.
Once the pestilence begins to spread like wildfire, Evil’s pace shifts from adrenaline-level intensity to D.O.A. stagnation and never resurrects itself. Perhaps Noussias was attempting to present the idea that an apocalypse is rather boring at heart. But, however true such might be, the filmmaker fails to question if such is celluloid fodder. In lieu of Trioxin-tempo undead, nothing of value is offered as we go from scene to scene of survival horror without any concern for our characters or the situation at hand. Thus, by the “climax” (cough, cough) of Yorgos Noussias’s Evil, the film leaves its audience as apathetic to what they just witnessed as the director’s characters who opened the film.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with Director David DeFalco (Chaos) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Nathan Baesel (Behind the Mask: ROLV) - January 22, 2015
- An Interview with Bentley Little - January 22, 2015
- So You Want to Be a Movie Critic, Heh? - January 22, 2015
- Fearful Meditations: An Annotated Bibliography of Studies in Horror Cinema - January 22, 2015
- I Can’t Discuss Glen Morgan’s New Film, [Censored] [Censored], Because Liberty Counsel Says It’s Rude: Race, Religious Tolerance, Ethics, and Aesthetics and the 21st Century Holiday Horror Film - January 22, 2015
- Roger Ebert’s Bloody Ax: An Examination of the Film Critic’s Elitist Dismissal of the Horror Film by Michael “Egregious” Gurnow - January 22, 2015
- Defending the King: An Examination of Academia’s Reaction to Stephen King Being Awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters - January 22, 2015
- Zarathustra . . . Cthulhu . Meursault: Existential Futility in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” - January 22, 2015
- The Evil - January 18, 2015
