Evil's City

Some college kid reporters go off in search of a hidden ghost town called Acheron. Naturally they find a bit more than they bargained for. After a good start the movie gets pretty bogged down. During the first half it's kind of hard to figure out much about what's really going on, it just plain jumps around too much. There are flashbacks that don't really help since they just sort of pop up out of nowhere. The last half hour or so picks up nicely as people are getting knocked off left and right in very violent fashion. You're gonna have to watch this sucker twice to actually enjoy this flick. That way you'll have some idea where the plot is going. Watchable if you like blood and guts. I give it a four out of ten for gore.

This film had some OK potential, but unfortunately it's just a mess. It's your typical "kids wander into ghost town & discover zombies" plot. There are some fine makeup effects on the zombies and their attack scenes show some decent effort... but even these are undercut by goofy and confusing editing.

Sadly the film isn't all goofy. The first half is a real drag, with annoying characters who squabble on & on and never shut up. The girls especially are as annoying, spiteful and selfish as possible. At least it makes the audience happy when things go badly for these losers.

A lot of that is the director's fault, but honestly the actresses are just plain bad. One of them, "Misty," does that horrible lisping voice that you never hear in real life, but for some reason bad actresses love. Think of a swishing gay stereotype voice, except it's a woman doing it. Bad, bad casting.

For a movie that wastes so much time with nothing happening, it sure crams in a bunch of concepts that go nowhere. There's some drifter with an English accent who knows stuff about the town; a picture in a church suggests he was the local cult leader, but the guy just disappears from the movie. There are some military goons apparently chasing a Mexican killer into this town; wouldve been fun if the killer showed up, but nope. There's a preacher who sounds like Sam the Eagle and randomly shows up out of nowhere at the end. Misty and Ruben (2 of the loser protags) just kinda die off-camera, I guess. The movie tries to be a morality tale where the main characters are coping with their own guilt, but the characters are just too stupid to sell that idea.

Still, you'll get some chuckles from this movie. The character of Kevin is a mumbly, schlubby guy who gets the most dramatic lines. He's very miscast, but the way he says super-dramatic stuff in the most casual, wimpy way is pretty funny. And the bad editing has a few laugh-out-loud moments, especially Kevin's appearance in front of a cheap green-screen at the end.

It's not a total disaster, but this movie isn't laughable enough to reach "so bad it's good" territory, and it spends too much time being just plain boring. I don't think more time in the oven would've saved it... This one was just badly conceived, badly cast, and badly planned from the get-go.

There is nothing worse than a movie everybody in it knows will suck. No one acts, no one writes anything decent in the script, the sounds are bad, the editing is bad, the camera work is bad. This film is just bad. Forget about horror. There is nothing horrorful about it, only the horrible production that one can hardly name a movie.

Let me emphasize this: this is so bad, you can't even laugh at it. There are no ridiculous scenes, because they are too bad to actually laugh at them. This will never be a cult movie, nor will it be something taken seriously by anyone. The budget is so low, that film students wouldn't touch it, so i guess a "film company" tried to sell this piece of crap as a video rental money maker.

Horrible! Awful! And average in its awfulness.

I like to mix up my horror movies between good and bad. Usually I will buy a couple of each and spend the day switching between trash and legit movies. I will admit finding Evil's City new for $6 made me think it was going to be horrible, but I was quite surprised with it.

It's basically about a group of kids that travel to an abandoned town called Acheron. The town itself is supposed to be pure evil, and soon all the dead come back to life at night. Then they have to try to figure out if and how they can escape.

Obviously low budget horror, but done very well, obviously by someone with a passion for the genre. The actors are above average for this type of flick as well. The sets and locations are actually creepy and well thought out too. My only complaint is the sound is sorta all over the place at times, but it's easily forgiven and doesn't take away from the movie.

If you can enjoy modern tripe like Demon Child 666, Blood Gnome, or Satan's Little Helper, then give this one a shot.

I don't know why I keep trying these movies at the video store. The cover and story are intriguing, and I am irrevocably drawn to it in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, this one will be different than the mountains of B schlock that I've seen in the past. But alas, it just never happens.

This is one more on the pile of practically worthless movies I've seen that have a great idea, but extremely poor execution. I am a horror fan, and love the premise of ghosts, haunted towns, and other supernatural elements in a movie when handled well.

The acting from the first frame was unconvincing and amateur, and proceeded throughout. Suspense was typically minimal and most of the "horror" moments were handled very sloppily. I will never grasp how such crap can manage to get funded. The producer(s) must take out a second mortgage or something else dire, and then roll the dice and hope that enough schmucks will shell out their hard earned cash to gobble up their vile stew. Hey, Blair Witch sucked and it made money, right?

I must digress a moment and say that there were a few decent scare moments here and there, maybe one good gore bit to keep it from being a complete waste of one and a half hours of my life. It was also interesting to see a host of a show I enjoy called "Cities of the Underworld" on the History Channel have a bit part here.

But these fleeting moments do not make the experience worthwhile. If you must submit yourself to this "film," and I use the term loosely, then get it for $0.50 at Family Video. Or just forget it and look for something that's bound to be better.