‘Live-Evil’ Review
Stars: Charlene Amoia, Vladimir Kulich, Tony Todd, Vincent M. Ward, J. Richey Nash, Russell A. Bryan, Carter, Ira David Wood III, Tamara Farias, Jackson Prather, Karen Wheeling Reynolds, Ed Ricker | Written and Directed by Ari Kirschenbaum
Live-Evil. It’s Ghostbusters meets Dawn of the Dead caught in the Twilight Zone… When a small college town police station is besieged by “Evil” on a sleepy Halloween night, Pete, the sheriff, and Hancock, his loyal deputy, are thrown into the middle of holy chess-game that could destroy the town, and possibly the world.
When I started watching Live-Evil I thought it was great. I liked the strange artistic style, I liked the kooky, bass guitar riffs they had thumping in the background, I liked the main character Hancock (Charlene Amoia) who was the right level of badass and grumpy and I liked the way the film just dropped you in it, not really giving you many clues as to what was going on. Overall, I was ready for a weird horror film which would be a bit mind-bendy.
That is exactly what Live-Evil gives you. It drags you kicking and screaming along its storyline where ‘evil’ has invaded, zombies are rising, eyes are glowing and chaos rules. Sounds fantastic, I know. The only problem is, now that I have reached the end, I can’t actually tell you if I liked the film or not because, well, I’m not sure. Sometimes the acting was amazing, sometimes it was lacklustre. The effects were the same way. So was the sound quality. It seems to be a film at odds with itself, so I guess it is alright for me to be at odds with myself too. By about half way through, I actually found myself getting bored of the quirky zombie-filled style and craving something more. Despite the violence and explosions, the film has quite a slow pace. Live-Evil never quite feels like it gets where it wants to go.
As I have said already, there are parts of Live-Evil which I think are amazing. It is definitely a unique entity. It had little ounces of charm throughout which should please any fan of the genre, from the zombie costumes to the way it flicks from black and white to colour half way through. It’s silly, it over-the-top and it knows it. But even with all this, I still can’t say that the Live-Evil was completely a success.
Might be worth watching it at least once, just to experience it though.
*** 3/5
