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Review
by
Rod Barnett
The
Evil :7
Twice
Dead :4
:
DVD:9
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| Content
icons apply only to TWICE
DEAD |
| The
latest Roger Corman double feature DVD from Shout! Factory pairs
two haunted house thrillers made a full ten years apart. These
films demonstrate just how standards fell from the 1970s to the
'80s. |
|
1978's
The Evil opens with an alcoholic
caretaker nervously entering a beautiful hilltop mansion to ready
it for prospective new owners. Following a series of strange sounds
he ventures into the basement only to be mysteriously torched
by the cold furnace and burned to death. We then meet psychologist
C.J. Arnold (Richard Crenna) and his doctor wife Caroline (Joanna
Pettet), who purchase the dilapidated (and amazingly cheap) mansion
with the intention of cleaning it up and outfitting it to become
a secular drug rehabilitation center. C.J. establishes his indifference
to religion early on by describing most churches as "organized
hypocrisy" when questioned by the local realtor. Over a summer
weekend they gather a group of friends and ex-patients to help
ready the place for its new life but from the beginning Caroline
is seeing visions of a ghostly image around the place. Puzzled
as to why only she can spot this odd but unthreatening phantom,
she keeps quiet at first, knowing that the logical C.J. will dismiss
her encounter. Then a curious C.J. removes a cross stuck between
the handles of a trapdoor in the basement, inadvertently releasing
a dark, malevolent force that appears to have been held in check
for centuries. At first trying desperately to ignore or explain
away the ensuing supernatural incidents (starting with a massive,
localized earthquake when the trap door is flung open), C.J. is
slowly forced to admit that although he doesn't believe, it hardly
matters anymore. Once the evil is unleashed it seals the house
completely so that no one can escape, then starts attacking its
group of victims one after the other in expectedly violent ways.
Eventually it becomes apparent that rational C.J. is being harassed
with a purpose and a confrontation with what lurks below the house
may be the only way out. |
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A
low budget, thinly plotted film, The Evil
manages to eke every bit of tension and every chill possible from
its simple scenario. Starting with the solid script that lays
out each character economically, director Gus Trikonis crafted
a smart roller coaster/haunted house ride that builds its scares
well and never cheats to have an effect. Almost old fashioned
in its sensibilities, it creates an atmosphere of fear and terror
as much with the shocking (if mostly bloodless) deaths as with
the contours of the house. The mansion is an amazing location
for a horror story with a gorgeous near-gothic interior design
and lots of dim corners where shadows can gather to hide... things.
The bulk of the story takes place over the course of a single
night, which adds to the internal logic of the events — it's not
likely that even the very rational C.J. would have returned to
the place after one of his friends died in an accident. The cleverness
of the storytelling is enhanced by a strong cast, too. Besides
the always reliable Crenna and Pettet there is Andrew Prine (The
Centerfold Girls) as a college professor dating his younger
student; Cassie Yates being both cute and terrified in equal measure;
former Playboy bunny Lynne Moody nearly getting her clothes ripped
off by an invisible demon; and Mary Louise Weller as Prine's love
interest, wondering why she signed up for this three credit-hour
summer nightmare. The Evil is a very
entertaining film that manages to be scary and intelligent in
almost equal amounts. I fear it's a little too tame by today’s
standards with only one scene of real gore, little foul language
and an ending that relies on an actor's presence more than FX.
I really can't understand how the film got an R rating, as a movie
like Poltergeist had much
more gruesome stuff yet was granted a PG. But don't let the lack
of over-the-top splatter put you off — this film is more than
able to keep your attention. Hell! I think it's miles better than
the next year's Amityville Horror
(as an example). |
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The
second film of the set, called Twice Dead
(1988), is less successful and easily the lower half of the double
bill. |
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In a pre-credits sequence set in the 1930s, we see stage actor
Tyler Walker (Jonathan Chapin) hang himself after a love-obsessed
candlelit dancing cum pathetic ritual involving a female mannequin.
Cut to 1988, where the decaying house in which this slide into
madness occurred still sits in a now financially deteriorated
Los Angeles neighborhood. We meet a nice but financially struggling
middle-aged couple (Sam Melville and Brooke Bundy) as they move
into the rundown place with their two teenage kids, Scott (Tom
Bresnahan) and Robin (Jill Whitlow). The family instantly has
some trouble with a leather-clad gang of thugs who they discover
on the house's front porch, acting as if they own the joint.
After the local cops shoo the miscreants away they continue
to be relentless in their tormenting of the teenagers in the
following weeks. One night they engage in some vandalism and
manage to kill the family cat and nearly succeed in sexually
molesting poor Robin, with only the firing of Dad's shotgun
enough to send these juvenile scoundrels scurrying back into
the night. Sadly, the gang just can't learn a lesson. While
the parents are away tying up some financial loose ends, Scott
and Robin are victims of a motorcycle-fueled home invasion by
the gang
—
but as they struggle to turn the tables on the scumbags, it
appears that breaking into the house was a bigger mistake than
anyone involved might have expected. The wandering mirror-inhabiting
ghost of Tyler Walker begins to take a hand in the action...
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Reading
better than it plays, this is a pretty
predictable and boring affair. It's not that Twice
Dead is a bad movie — it's just not a good movie, either.
It fits perfectly in that sad zone of mid-range, mediocre, passable
horror film that's too often the result of a production lacking
in a few more aspects than it should. Its first and most obvious
failing is that it's not creepy or scary at all and doesn't really
seem to be trying very hard. The flat direction and lighting of
the 'ghostly' interior sets are all dull and drab. The characters
are standard matinee-level types that might fit more easily into
an afterschool special about the nightmares of school bullies
and the horrors of being the new kids at school than in a tale
of vicious gangs and vengeful ghosts. The third act home invasion
is obvious from the beginning, playing like a series of dumb,
goofy set-pieces that are supposed to be terrifying but have no
punch. It never feels like there's a real threat to the kids at
all, with the sneering pretty boy gang leader (Christopher Burgard)
coming off as a moron in every scene. And although some might
argue that the plot point of having Scott use movie make-up effects
to confuse and fight off the thugs was interesting, I suspect
that even in 1988 most horror fans would have been unimpressed
with this tired convention. The only attempt at a surprise in
the plotting is a pretty silly last minute revelation about the
identity of one of the gang members, which isn't interesting enough
to add much spice to this bland stew. As I said, its not that
it's a bad film — it's just not very good. Nothing is even vaguely
memorable and the entire production has the feel of something
hacked out as quickly as possible by folks with their eyes on
their next, hopefully better, project. |
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|
| The
Shout! Factory DVD of these two movies is an excellent disc and
the company has gone out of their way to make it well worth a
purchase. Each film can be accessed from a menu as well as the
various extras but there's an alternate way to watch both as a
true double feature. Activating this option gives you two extra
trailers before each feature (Kingdom
of the Spiders, Death Race 2000,
the 1988 version of Not of this Earth,
The Terror Within) as well as a brief
concessions advertisement copped from Something Weird Video. The
only complaint I can dredge up about this disc is that both movies
look to have been taken from slightly worn prints. They have a
bit of speckling and occasional vertical lines across the image
but it is never very distracting. Of the two The
Evil fares the best, with the most damage showing at the
reel changes; its co-feature looks a little rattier. The movies
have only their original Mono soundtracks, which are clear and
clean in each case. |
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On
the extras front there is a wealth of goodness! Both movies have
been granted a full length commentary track with some of the creators.
The Evil's track boasts director
Trikonis, scriptwriter Donald Thompson and director of photography
Mario Di Leo. These three are a lively bunch and it is surprisingly
the elderly Di Leo who seems to have the best memory of the shoot.
All three remember enjoying the freedom of independent production
even with the small budget and tight schedule. The films producer
only allowed them so much raw film footage to make the entire
project so second takes were a rare thing. The track does begin
to develop a few silent spots at about the 45-minute mark but
moderator Walter Olsen keeps things moving. Olsen handles these
duties for the Twice Dead track as
well, prompting director Bert Dragin and lead actor Tom Bresnahan
through an anecdote-filled talk. Another extra for the second
film is a 12-minute interview with actress Jill Whitlow about
this movie, her memorable roles in Night
of the Creeps and Weird Science,
and why she eventually gave up acting.
Also present is a trailer and TV spot for The
Evil to round out the extras. It's hard to imagine a better
way to enjoy these little-seen movies. 11/05/10 |
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