Hammer films may have made a bunch of horror movies for period of 20 years, but just about everyone who does horror (or any kind of) movies nowadays got their start working with Roger Corman. He's produced hundreds of movies, worked with just about all the big stars and directors back when they were cobbling together stage sets when they were in their teens, trying to make it big, and if I'm not mistaken he's been producing movies for about 50 years or so. So it comes as no surprise to me that he's done some of the best horror films out there. Piranha, for instance, is getting the 3D makeover, but the original movie was done by Roger Corman back in the 70's. If hollywood ever decides to actually LOOK for new ideas, they need only ask Roger Corman if he's got any spare projects he doesn't have time to make.
Tonight's film, The Evil, was done in that period between the 70's and 80's when everyone was doing horror films, not just the crappy actors who needed bit parts to break into blockbusters like nowadays. The Evil starts out pretty decently, and just gets better from there. It's obviously a quality piece of work, and keeps you engrossed from beginning to end.
It begins with a caretaker heading into an old mansion. I forget his name, so we're just going to call him Deadmeat. Yes, he's one of THOSE, the character whose sole purpose in the film is to be the first victim of whatever beastie is going to get the ball rolling. So caretaker deadmeat starts sweeping up, hears noises, and heads down into the basement to find out where the sound is coming from. Becoming more and more scared as he goes, deadmeat finally tracks the noise to the old furnace, and gingerly opens the door to peer inside and find... nothing but cold ashes. Greatly relieved as the noises stop, deadmeat is about to close the door to the furnace when a blast of fire bursts forth and consumes him. And so the mansion claims it's first victim.
Next, we see why the caretaker has gone into the place. It seems a prominent psychologist (Richard Crenna!) is going to open a sort of halfway house for mental patients there, and a bunch of his assistants, former students and people he's helped over the years are all coming up to the place to clean it up and open it for business. Of course, before that can happen, they need to get the wiring up to par, so there's also an electrician and his team there setting up a generator and putting in some work lights, since apparently, the place hasn't had anyone in it for at least 50 years, and it's a hundred years older than that, having been built by some guy named Vargas back around the end of the civil war. Apparently, the indians avoided the area because it stank of sulphur and they thought there were evil spirits all through the area...
Why oh why does nobody ever listen to the indians when they tell you the ground is bad news? Stupid white man.
I'm not going to give away any more of this movie. It's excellent and fast paced, and the only problem I had with it was the end parts, where they explain what's causing all the ruckus. That and there was no actual nudity despite every girl in the movie being quite attractive. But other than that, pretty good stuff.
Roger Corman did a ton of other movies, probably even some of the other ones I've already reviewed, and probably some of the ones I'm going to review in the future. Nice part is, unlike Hammer films, which is mostly defunct at this point, good old Roger is still pumping out movies. You go Roger! Make those B movie cult classics! I love em!
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