The Horror Show
Evolution of Evil
by Kevin Forrest
I have always said that a horror movie should be no less than eighty minutes and no more than ninety-five. That seems to be a good length to get all the story you need to be well fleshed out and not too long that people lose interest. Evolution of Evil managed to bore me with just seventy minutes. Let me break down what went wrong.
First of all, the story wasn't anything new. People camp in a secluded location, people get killed by weird inbred cannibals. Tale as old as time. Instead of The Sawyers in Texas or Jupiter's Clan in Nevada, we get Arvis in the Pacific Northwest. He is joined by… his son? His brother? It's actually a woman, but we are not graced with the backstory of why Arvis thinks she is a he. We're actually not given any information on anyone.
Second, these characters are unlike-able. Chris and Lori are our leads in this very short story. Chris is okay, but Lori is the worst. She's a whiny Wanda. She is bitching about the creepy sign on the general store, she's whining cause of the “teens” that are too rowdy; she is so annoying, I am ready to kill her myself. The nice lady in the store was even the recipient of her super snark when she told Chris the store didn't take cards. It was this point where they shoehorned in Lori wanting beef jerky, and instead of Jack Links, she wants the local stuff because “local is better!” This is when I realized that there would be cannibals in this movie because the beef jerky was in a plain brown bag with ARVIS JERKY written on it in sharpie. And you know that's how they would totally sell human jerky. Chris gets taken the next morning by Arvis, Lori wakes up near a creek and immediately starts hobbling thru the woods. She finds a road and guess who picks her up? Arvis! Then it turns into a bad knock-off of so many films just like it. There was even an obvious nod to The Shining. That is pretty much that. Lori is our final girl who is saved by the very “teens” she mocked for drinking PBR.
Kevin Forrest has mainly worked as a cinematographer. The few things he has directed have been shorts. This movie feels like it was meant to be a short. It has so many shots that, in any other movie, would be B-reel stuff. Unfortunately, most of this movie is B-reel stuff. I saw more shots of a dead deer and foliage than I have ever seen in a nature documentary. There is also an overabundance of aerial shots. I feel like somebody got a drone for Christmas! Seriously, stop with that. It's not clever film making. It's really bad cinematography. Plus, it takes you completely out of the movie.
Evolution of Evil was just a jumble that was boring. It made seventy minutes feel like two hours, but like, the dullest two hours ever.
HMS received an advanced screener of this film in exchange for review
Robin Thompson, HMS
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