Evil (2005)

3 Stars (out of 4)

My Big Fat Greek Bloodletting

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

The current craze for zombie movies seems to have nearly run out of gas as they repeat the same ideas over and over again. Yorgos Noussias' Evil (a.k.a. To Kako) doesn't particularly offer anything new except for two things: it has a lot of energy, and it comes from Greece (I can count the number of Greek movies I've seen on one hand). It starts when three workers descend into a cave and are attacked by something unseen. Later, they turn upon whoever happens to be nearby and devour them. In turn those victims become zombies, until an epidemic has spread across Athens. Like other zombie movies, a random assortment of humans band together to try to survive. The zombies move fast, but unlike 28 Days Later, the film moves fast, too, and with lots of giddy, black humor. The video box compares the film's style to early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, which is exactly what I was thinking. Writer/director Noussias cooks up surprising new ways to decapitate, squash and otherwise deface the attackers, and the emphasis is on how fast the humans take to brutality to survive. When the dust of the current zombie onslaught settles, I think that Evil will be among the last ones standing.

DVD Details: The DVD from TLA releasing comes with a photo gallery and a trailer.