Evil to Kako review, do not miss this film

Hollywood in general gives us rubbish, we are used to this and anyone who is into films spends most of their movie watching life looking for the diamond in the rough. This film may not be a diamond but it shines bright in the face of the Hollywood movie machine and in the true spirit of the independent film industry manages to do some things that make it truly stand out.

This is the first Greek zombie movie and was written and directed by Yorgos Noussias. They had practically no budget for this film but have made an absolute cracker of a no budget zombie film which has a sequel in the works featuring Billy Zane, but more on that later. The film opens with three guys finding an opening to an underground cave, it is not made clear why there were there or why they had a ladder and hard hats with them but its not particularly important to the story. Once in the cave we have an evil dead style POV shot from the "Evil`s" point of view and the three men are attacked. We then cut to each of the three men and what they are doing that evening and get to watch them turn in the undead. The locations of the three make for interesting choices as two of them are in public places which will allow for a rapid spreading of the undead and one is at home so we get a more claustrophobic change where only the persons direct family are involved (at first). We are introduced to a few of the main characters, most notably the taxi driver who will provide some great comic relief throughout the film. The daughter of the man who turn whilst at home escapes with a woman from downstairs and for the most part we then have a standard zombie movie where the main characters try to escape the zombie infested city. The gore is handled very well for the budget however about halfway through the movie there is a sequence in an abandoned restaurant where the characters stop being people and for no apparent reason become ultimate zombie killing machines using martial arts and showing feats of super strength. This section comes straight out of left field and really stood out as it is unlike most of the rest of the film. I have no idea why the scene was shot like this as all the characters personalities change dramatically and then after they all go straight back to how they were. The end of the film is the highlight, not because its over but because the final scene is truly awesome, with such a low budget I'm not sure how they got the over head shot of the stadium but i was blown away with it and turned a good film to a must see for all zombie fans.

As for the sequel, Evil: In The Time Of Heroes , the pictures on the official website show that this appears to have some scenes if not most of the film in ancient Greece which is certainly a great idea (although Rome Vs Rome did something along those lines) if you want to see the pics follow the link below: -

http://www.tokako.gr/

hope you like the review, I'm off to watch the zombie diaries so expect a review soon.

Podcast with Bite

Hey all, just to let you know there is a brilliant podcast covering straight to DVD zombie movies called mail order zombie, this is made by brother D and miss Bren and its an absolutely brilliant podcast covering all your zombie needs. You can find them at www.mailorderzombie.com or search for them on Itunes.

Severed: Forest of the dead

Ok, at first look i was really excited about this on as the forest/logging camp setting was something i had never seen in a zombie flick before but this was one of the few factors that was original. The movie starts at a protest camp where we are introduced to the protest leader Rita (Sara Lind) and her rabble of save the forest protesters. There is a short scene of them trying to stop a logger getting into the camp with Rita at the forefront. We then cut to the logging camp and the characters of Luke, Mac and Carter are introduced. There is an accident at the camp and some of the tree sap from the tree being cut gets into the logger's chainsaw cut and he quickly turns. We are then introduced to Tyler (Paul Campbell) who is the main protagonist of the film, there is an overly long background scene that basically informs us that his fathers company (whom he works for) is genetically experimenting on the trees to increase the logging yield and he does not want to follow in his fathers footsteps at the company but is being forced to. Tyler is then sent to the logging camp to get some field experience and when he arrives we see that the protest camp and the logging mill are deserted. Tyler is then attacked by a zombie and there is a rather tasty dispatch of a zombie using the tree cutter. Unfortunately this is where the film becomes repetitive, Tyler finds the other survivors and we get scene after scene of zombie's chasing them and then getting killed, the visual effects were well done but there was a bit of inconsistency with the zombies, some were quicker than others and seemed more aware of their surroundings. The make up for the zombies was again nicely done but every one of them looked the same, there were many homages/cliches of other zombie movies and i didn't feel like there was anything new being done, not to mention that we are only half way through the film at this point. Its at just over the half way mark that things start getting really odd, the survivors are abducted by a group of loggers that were working in another part of the forest, after the introductions they realise that these people are sort of gun nuts who are capturing and killing the zombies for fun (rather like the cage scene in land of the dead) and are generally unpleasant people. I'm not going to go much further than that with this movie as after this it just goes down hill, and i felt that the director or writer had run out of ideas. The story get really messy and there are far to many quick cuts and everything seem forced and rushed. The graininess of the movie was quite well used at the beginning of the film but there are a lot of scenes at night and the visibility starts to fade, mix in some constant rain and the scenes start to become distracting and hard to see. Overall i would give this 2 out of 5, its a worth a rent and the director does show some real promise, i will definitely watch another of his films as i think he will be great in a few years but this particular movie was nothing new. Hope you like the review and feel free to comment with you opinion on this move or other zombie films to review, see ya!!!

Blog full of boomstick

Hey all, this blog is going to be completely dedicated to the greatest film genre in the world (for me anyway) the zombie film. I have loved these movies since i saw Zombi 2 on chanel 4 in the early part of the 90`s (when i was way to young to have seen it lol) and this passion has follwed through to the present day. I am going to go through as many of the genres films as i can and try to give a bit of history to them as well, i really hope you enjoy reading this, the first movie is going to be "severd: forest of the dead" check back soon for revew. Bye for now!!!!