Surviving Evil

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.

I'm with you on your review. I didn't understand the ending, it was vague. Did you?

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.

A small crew arrive at an island in the Philippines to begin shooting a documentary about a tribe that lives on the island but little do they know that something else also lives on the island, ancient creatures with a thirst for blood.

This UK/South African co production was written and directed by Terence Daw and it is an exceptional little monster movie boasting a well fleshed out storyline, the performances by Billy Zane (BLOODRAYNE), Natalie Mendoza (THE DESCENT) and Colin Moss (NUMBER 10) are great as well as the performances from the supporting cast, the creature design is one of the better designs I've seen in recent low budget films and the director shows a big degree of professionalism.

However, this film is not really scary so I wouldn't recommend it if you're looking to get scared stiff but I would recommend it if you want to see a really good movie.

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