Movie Review of The Evil (2005) by Eric R. Lowther

Review by: Eric R. Lother

Posted by: Root Rot

The Evil aka To kako (2005)

Directed by: Yorgos Noussias

Language: Greek

There’ve been a lot of foreign filmmakers jumping into the beloved yet abusedzombie film genre over the last decade. From “Rec” to “Hell’s Ground”, the international indie horror scene has been embracing the zombie (or at least the zombie-ish) genre more and more, harkening back to the Fulci and Argento days when the Italians were producing more zombie goodness by volume than even their American counterparts were. It was only a matter of time before the Greeks got involved. 2005’s “The Evil” (or “Ta kako” by its original title) is by all accounts the first zombie movie with any sort of distribution to be set and filmed in Greece and starring an all-Greek cast. I’ve seen a few DVD versions floating around, but like mine none are dubbed. Not that they bothered me. I’m a big fan of foreign takes on classic “American” genres, so the subtitles are a small price to pay.

The movie opens with three men entering an underground cave near Athens, Greece. It’s obvious they’re working, and by their miner’s helmets and gear that they knew they were going to be entering said cave, but nothing is overtly stated as to why they’re there. This may perhaps be a failing in the translation. In any event, the men are knocked unconscious by an unseen force. However, in a style lifted straight from “The Evil Dead” (careful of the title confusion) we see this force stalking the men from its red-tinged POV and ultimately rushing them. The men remember nothing of the attack and only know that they were unconscious for a time. One goes home to watch a soccer match, another actually goes to the stadium to see the match while the third takes his girlfriend to a dance club. Soon, all three become violently ill and transform into flesh-eating monsters. After that, there’s really no over-arcing plot and we’re left with following around a plucky group of survivors as they try to escape the city and keep from being eaten and/or turned into the monsters until we reach the fairly predictable though solid ending.

The cinematography is gritty and done well, with especially good handheld work in the action sequences considering the low-budget nature of the project. The attacks and effects we see in the first half are few but quite violent, strong, and visceral. In the second half though, we move into tons and tons of just plain silliness, and as the number of action sequences increase the effects quality dwindles significantly. It feels as if the movie was shot at least partially in sequential order since as it goes on and we get more and more outlandish kills and attacks there just doesn’t seem to be enough time or room in the budget to keep up the quality. The locations and set dressing are a perfect fit to the story and give the feeling of the seedier parts of an empty city, with everything having been bled of any real color of vitality. The acting is hit-and-miss, though, especially from our sort-of lead, brooding hero, with the supporting characters seemingly better drawn. That or they were just more fun to play. This is especially true in the case of the wise-cracking, perpetually horny cab driver in the group and to a lesser extent the shell-shocked soldier the group picks up, loses and then gets back again. Many of the zombie movie character archetypes are here; the screaming young girl, the loose cannon, the smart chick that becomes a fighter, the cute chick that suddenly reveals uber fighting skills that make no sense yet weren’t even hinted at before she starts kicking ass, and the moody, gloomy half-hero pseudo-leader that had to kill his loved ones off-camera before the group came together.

While technically proficient and a decently-paced, fun zombie-ish film, it does have two major problems. First, it suffers from an identity crisis. Everything pre-outbreak and during the first night we see indicates the movie is taking itself very seriously as a horror movie. But as soon as dawn breaks in the city and we start gathering our little band of survivors together we launch straight into “zombedy” or “zomcom” (by the by, I fucking HATE both those words. Can someone come up with something less-gay for this subgenre?) territory. It’s not that they handle either theme overly well or poorly, only that the transition comes completely out of left field and occurs during the group’s first real hand-to-hand skirmish with the monsters. We go from knock-off “28 Days Later” to knock-off “Braindead” in less than a heartbeat. And I don’t use the “28 Days Later” reference lightly, either. This movie obviously owes much of its existence to 2003’s “28 Days Later”, so much so that I would be willing to call the first half homage and the second a parody. And, just like with that film, you’ll notice I’ve avoided the “zombie” label when referring specifically to the movie’s threat. It’s clear that humans become infected by bite/fluid exchange while alive. They don’t die before transforming, and the fact they can be killed by any of the normal traumas the human body can suffer just as with “28 Days Later” confirms they aren’t of the dead. I’ve always preferred the term “infected zombie” or “chemical zombie” in these cases. It allows the movie to stay in the zombie genre yet clearly defines the fact they are not of the dead. But hey, that’s just me. I won’t tell you how to live your life.

The movie’s second major problem comes down to inconsistency and mythos continuity. Right from the start, the creation and behavior of the “monsters” and how they are killed is contradictory. It’s clear to the viewer from the opening scene that the genus is clearly supernatural. However, being bitten or having an exchange of fluids infects a victim. But it doesn’t stop there. In the beginning of the movie we see one of the Patient 0s attack a man at a club. One bite and five seconds later the new victim has turned and is attacking other dancers. Ten minutes later, we see a group of infected fall on a victim and start devouring him. The new victim is still very much alive and remains so even as they are eating him and pulling out his innards for a very long (comparatively) time. We also see the infected fighting with humans, running them down and even leaping through the air; all things that require a fairly stout body. However, our heroes are able to punch bare-handed completely through the infected bodies and even tear the heads from their shoulders with kicks and punches. You could explain the ease with which the infected can be killed if they were dead and their bodies were deteriorating rapidly, but that wouldn’t allow for their physical speed and abilities. You could explain their physical abilities by falling back on the “infected” moniker, but that wouldn’t explain why their bodies seem to be made of balsa wood and tissue paper. Maybe I’m being overly critical, but when a movie so flagrantly goes against its own mythos and consistently violates its continuity just to give a cheap thrill or jump scare it really takes me out of the story.

I don’t like giving quantified ratings on movies. It’s just too easy for a good movie to get a low rank when you insist on comparing them all on the same scale. So, in all, for indie zombie/infected movie fans that don’t mind subtitles and shifting rules, you could do worse. If you’re like me it’s refreshing to see how filmmakers from other cultures work with our genre conventions from time to time, adapting them and making them their own. The movie is available through Netflix as well as for purchase on Amazon for $5 – $10. For genre fans, it’s worth at least that.

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