Eternal Evil - Das ewige Böse

Winston Rekert is a fairly successful, but unsatisfied director of television commercials who learns the art of astral projection (letting his spirit travel around without his body) from Karen Black. This all seems cool until people around him start dying mysteriously. Cop John Novak investigates and the film crawls towards it's utterly predictable conclusion.

Hungarian born Canadian director George Mihalka directed this, his 2nd horror outing after the pretty nifty slasher flick "My Bloody Valentine". That film suffered from some pretty serious cuts to avoid an X rating. This film was clearly never in any such danger.

It was made as "The Blue Man". That title refers to how someone is supposed to appear when they are astrally projecting ... a shimmering blue phantasm of themselves. This effect was clearly beyond the budgetary means of the film, so instead they're invisible, even though the dialogue still describes them as the missing effect. We do see blurry POV footage of the travelling spirits, but basically, there's no effects in this film.

There's not much of anything else either. It's an interminably slow and uneventful film. It's hard to imagine any viewer that won't be miles ahead of this plot and wildly impatient for the film to catch up.

"A bored television director is introduced to the black arts and astral projection by his girlfriend. Learning the ability to separate his spirit from his body, the man finds a renewed interest in his life and a sense of wellbeing. Unfortunately, the man discovers while he is sleeping, his spirit leaves his body and his uncontrolled body roams the streets in a murderous rampage," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

The synopsis isn't entirely correct, as it turns out.

Anyway, the movie opens with a dizzying "out-of-body" example of handsome director Winston Rekert (as Paul Sharpe)'s newly discovered "astral body" experience; it also foreshadows an upcoming dogfight. Young Andrew Bednarski (as Matthew Sharpe), being a kid, draws pictures of "The Blue Man", as his murder spree begins. Handsome detective John Novak (as Stewart Kaufman) discovers the victims are connected to Mr. Rekert. Mr. Novak's investigation leads to the supernatural; a prime example of which is Karen Black (as Janus), with whom Rekert fears he is falling in love.

Several in the cast perform well; but, "The Blue Man" winds up tying itself up in a knot. Aka "Eternal Evil", its unsatisfying story tries to be far too clever for its own good.

Eternal Evil (1985) is a Canadian horror 🇨🇦 film currently available on Tubi. The story follows a Canadian film director who learns a method to leave his body, only to discover he can't control it. When people around him begin dying, he's left struggling to stop the chaos.

Directed by George Mihalka (My Bloody Valentine), the film stars Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces), Winston Rekert (The Art of War II), John Novak (Legends of the Fall), and Vlasta Vrana (Upside Down).

This film is worth watching primarily for Karen Black, as the rest feels underwhelming. The storyline comes across as lazy and poorly executed, with dated horror effects. While the dream sequences offer a few decent jump scares, the kill scenes are weak, relying heavily on cutaways. The movie carries some giallo-inspired elements, but they don't fully land. However, the twist at the end is a fun highlight.

In conclusion, Eternal Evil is an average horror film best appreciated for Karen Black's performance. I'd rate it a 5/10.

A Canadian production brought to us by the man who previously gave us the '80s slasher favorite "My Bloody Valentine". As a director, George Mihalka is an interesting fellow, especially when you take a look at his choice of projects during the '80s. He really caught my interest some years ago after having seen his offbeat & eerie hostage thriller/drama "Hostile Takeover" aka "Office Party" (1988). "Eternal Evil" - which may not be the best of aka-titles possible to slap on this production, although "The Blue Man" just sounds too silly - is yet again an interested effort not at all lacking a sense of originality. It deals with a burned-out TV-director who, after having met the mysterious dancer Janus (Karen Black), learns to control the powers of astral projection. 'To control' might be a bit overstating things, as events turn for the worse and people from his circle of acquaintances start dying unnatural deaths. A detective starts puzzling the pieces together. Granted, the film has a hard time to keep the viewer excited, as the pace is a little slow and it's not exactly a spectacular thrill ride. But the story does try to provide a bit of mystery, and that's basically what keeps the viewer going. The film's decently made and Mihalka has some impressive camera-tricks up his sleeve (especially during the astral projection sequences). And the story does have some original elements and a satisfying conclusion (don't expect a terrifying climax, though). So it receives a whole extra point for that. If you want to see another horror film revolving around the concept of astral projection, you might want to check out Brian Trenchard-Smith's "Out Of The Body" (1989). It's also half-way decent.

I never figured out what the attraction of Karen Black was. She always had those beady eyes and kind of an odd look about her. She seemed to often be eccentric or cast as the "other" woman. In this one, she is the psychic adviser and expert on the occult to a crummy producer of bad commercials as he learns astral projection. He is a mean sucker, even without the new baggage. Apparently this is the avenue to immortality, because if you get good at it, you can inhabit the bodies of future generations. I believe Star Trek had a plot like this with Jack the Ripper hanging on for several centuries. Anyway, this guy is really dangerous. He has a nice family and makes them miserable. He begins to murder friends, just because they have an unkind comment for them, or he doesn't like them. You can see the ending coming from the back row in left field. It's a very harsh, humorless movie. Most of it must be taken as truth. Why are some called but few chosen? I found it long and not very satisfying.