Surviving Evil

I'm a fan of Billy Zane, in fact I'd go as far as to say I'm a big fan of his so it always pains me to see him in movies like this. The man has the acting chops and natural comedic timing so should be gracing our screens in high budget efforts not things like this.

Telling the story of a famous television survivalist and his film crew visiting a Phillipino island full of nasty creatures that funnily enough ruin their shoot.

The movie has little in the way of originality but does certainly have its moments. It's weakness besides the fact we've seen it all before is a dreadful ending which damages the entire film. Not sure if they did that ending because they expected to make a sequel, but that was very naive if the case.

Surviving Evil is a watchable piece with a decent enough cast and surprisingly decent sfx considering its budget but just pretend the film ends five minutes before the end.

The Good:

Billy Zane

Looks the part

The Bad:

Beyond dumb ending

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The creators had no clue of the weight of gold

The sanscript name for Jungle is Jungala

Set on the remote Mayaman Island in the Philippines, comes the story of six documentary filmmakers, who plan to spend six days shooting a survival special until they find out the island they perceived as uninhabited, reveals to have a Philippine folklore creature, the Aswang, lusting for their blood. The plot itself is intriguing. 6 people, a deserted island, and a mythical legend about a superior creature that looms over them. You can't go wrong with that, but somehow "Surviving Evil" didn't fully pull out all the stops when they had the chance.

I thought the cast was finely assembled. The performances of the actors were, for the most part, solid. Besides the atmosphere which was well established and the aerial shots of the island being beautiful, the acting came in as an added bonus. The characters all had their own conflicts affecting their lives, but the film makes a mistake spending over 40 minutes to flesh out these characters in their setting, leaving the creature to roar in hunger in the background. It just took way too long for the suspense to build up and nearing the end of the film, it felt like it was rushed to squeeze in a few things. And don't even get me started on that "to be continued" TV show episode ending. I surely hope they intend to make a sequel, because the ending is lousy.

All in all, "Surviving Evil" is decent horror worth a watch. You'll probably be exhausted with it for at least 30-40 minutes due to the lengthy character build-up taking away too much from the action to even begin, but when they deliver the last 90 minutes, it's pretty action packed. The directing and script may not be perfect; however, it's more than tolerable. Give the movie a shot. Sit back, relax and enjoy it.

Once again, various characters face a mystery the audience is already fully aware of the resolution of, prompting another movie that delivers little suspense or mystery.

The monsters are shapeshifters, capable of transforming into any creature, which in a jungle setting like this would provide excellent paranoia fuel. This gets wasted entirely, however, as animals barely appear on screen with the characters. Incidentally, the monsters rarely use these abilities in attacking their victims anyways.

Obviously it takes more than one actor to contribute anything worthwhile, and Billy Zane can only contribute slightly to a film with nothing else going for it. Even worse the monsters have almost no presence and aside from the times characters find evidence of their existence, it's as if nothing is happening.

Opened well and for a minute or two I thought…yep this is going to be an interesting and different type of film after a quick spooky intro..however the whole of the film ends up a disappointment and a shame as billy zane and Christina cole are good actors/actresses…the whole going to an island thing and finding it houses demonic forces seemed to be the initial line when it started but then it continues like a poor replica of 'predator' and you just can't compete with that, especially on a low budget, I suppose if I had to say something positive about the monsters they are pretty believable at times, but it would have been better to have stuck with a more supernatural theme…and I felt no emotion for those on the island, which is always a bad sign if you want to feel for those striving to survive

Sure, there was potential for more. There was also plenty to enjoy.

Some thrills, some silly dialogue, some meanies doing mean things, some blood, even some pretty ladies (no nudity).

Some people can't stop pretending they would have done it better long enough to enjoy something.

Grab a friend and a beer, enjoy yourselves.

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I didn't need ten lines to explain that, IMDb.

Sorry.

What else... well the monsters were quite vicious, a good thing I think. I don't like the pansy monsters in some movies. 30 Days of Night was a great movie precisely because the vampires were absolute beasts. Didn't sparkle or nothing.