Evilution
(2008/Brink DVD)
Picture:
C- Sound: C- Extras: C- Feature: D
There is
an incredible number of low-budget, direct-to-DVD horror flicks flooding the
market. Luckily for you, there’s Evilution,
a film so average and unoriginal that by the time the credits roll you should
be familiar with every overused trope, technique, and plot device that B-horror
films repeat ad nauseum.
The
government has discovered a microscopic alien life form that infects and
dominates a human host, living or dead, and turns them into violent
flesh-eating zombies. The military’s attempts to weaponize the alien
invasion go terribly awry and end in an air strike erasing the failure from
history. One scientist, Darren Hall, escapes with a sample of the alien life
form and goes into hiding while he attempts to establish communication with the
visitors. His first experiment gets out of hand though, and his seedy
run-down apartment building becomes overrun by the undead.
The cast
of characters is as average and predictable as the rest of the movie.
There’s the love-interest, Maddie (Sandra Ramírez), who throws herself at
Darren at every opportunity in the hope of catching herself a man who isn’t a
criminal or drug addict. The two goofy gang-bangers Asia Mark (James
Duval) and Killah-B (Guillermo Díaz) attempt (and fail) to provide comic
relief. Then there’s the creepy landlord (Nathan Bexton) and the military
agent (Tim Colceri) sent in to “take care of the situation.” The most fun
character in the film though, is Mrs. Harris. Played by 67 year old (at
the time) stunt woman Jeannie Epper with over 130 films under her belt, Mrs.
Harris is one of the first building tenants to be zombified and she shows up
again and again, always on the front lines of every fight scene.
Evilution was shot on high-quality video,
but to his credit, cinematographer Matthew Rudenberg was able to avoid many of
the pitfalls of shooting on video. However, there’s still a fair amount
of grainy video noise in the image and the audio has a consistent echo from
on-set recording. The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1
surround sound audio.
There are
only two special features on the disc, a commentary track, and a making-of
featurette. The featurette, titled “The
Evolution of Evilution: Behind the Scenes of Evilution” runs about 27
minutes long. The content varies from some rather interesting interviews
with the makeup artists to the entirely inane conversations with extras
concerning their very minor characters’ backgrounds and motivations.
Overall, “The Evolution of Evilution”
is as worth watching as the film itself – not very.
In the
end, fans of B-horror can’t go wrong with Evilution.
It’s the same schlock you’ve seen again and again, with almost nothing new or
original to bring to the table. There’s sex, there’s gore, there’s
violence, there’s zombies, and for some people that’s enough. Anyone else
would do well to stay away though.
- Matthew Carrick
