To kako - Stin epohi ton iroon

"To kako - Stin epohi ton iroon" is the second movie of "To kako" and in my opinion this movie is better than the first because it has many ancient dialogs between the actors who actually speaks ancient Greek and that was something which none expected to see. Again we have a big cast of actors who are popular in Greece and some of them and abroad.

This movie starts from the last movie's end. These people who survived from the zombies have now to do their best to survive not only from them but also from some people who got crazy and kill them all for no reason. Finally the thing that I liked the most in this movie was the connection between the ancient Athens and Athens now days and how this connection will play a key role to the evolution of the movie.

First of all CONGRATULATIONS for the fact that when they were in Ancient Greece the spoke ANCIENT Greek! How am i supposed to follow a film when Alexander the Great instead of speaking Ancient Greek speaks English? This movie contains many laughs, many laughs with catchy phrases in Ancient Greek, or in Modern Greek and a lot of splatter laughs. So this is what this movie is about, SPLATTER COMEDY! You are not supposed to be frightened. The direction is awesome, fast camera, zoom-in and zoom-out many times makes your eyes stuck into the screen. The visual effects are very real, Ancient Athens looked very real and i loved seeing the Parthenon on the background. The plot was a bit shallow but who cares? This movie is a splatter comedy/parody and it's a fantastic one. From the fight scenes in Ancient Greece where a fighter licked the sword to the point where Kleanthis smashed a head with his hand. Absolute must-see for a marvelous comedy with tons of blood and many zombies!!! p.s. Billy Zane thanks for speaking Ancient Greek, for a real Greek you should be proud! p.s. 2 No actor (including Zane) and no zombie (i also was a volunteer zombie) took ANY money for this film!

Viewed at the Festival de Cannes 2010

A sequel to the way, way better 2005 film, Evil In The Time Of Heroes is, sadly, a mess on every level. Previous reviewers have said this is a Greek film for Greeks! And I am sure in the original language the characters and situations have far more resonance. But nothing can disguise the fact that in terms of what matter; story, script, characters, development, direction and, well, everything that goes into a film, this production got away from all those concerned and, at best, looks like it's being made up and improvised as it goes along.

Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because let's-do-the-show-right-here can still have its charms. But for Evil In The Time Of Heroes this doesn't apply because the film is so confusing in terms of narrative and continuity it's impossible to figure out hows and whys. Historical flashbacks, featuring Billy Zane (I think a sad effort to throw in a 'name' after everything else has failed) try to make sense of what's going on but serve only to add more confusion.

Okay, so the story makes no sense but there's always the acting, right? Not in this case! This is one of those films best viewed with your eyes closed! But maybe these people are big in Greece and household names, so who knows? In any event, there is every Greek stereotype on display here, but since that's the Greeks poking fun at themselves I've no beef with that.

To end on a positive note: I really do respect anyone who makes a film and Evil In The Time Of Heroes makes a real effort. Unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere. If the film makers return to their roots, examine how and why the 2005 film works and this bigger-budgeted one doesn't, then here's all success to their third outing.

I absolutely respect that the filmmakers did a fine job with the budget that they had, and its very clear that everybody involved had a great time making this movie. And you know what? Good on them! I'm glad they took something so ridiculous and cheesy and just ran with it, having a blast along the way; but this film is surely not for everyone and in the end wasn't for me. In many regards it is clear that "Evil in the Time of Heroes" was simply meant to entertain, and to a degree it certainly succeeded. I laughed and gasped and had a half-decent time (not a stellar/memorable time mind you). However, when all is said and done I found this particular venture into the realm of ridiculous horror was too stylized and ambitious for its own good.

For starters, I think it can be easily argued that "Evil in the Time of Heroes" works as an experimental film more than anything and as such I can honestly say you will more than likely hate this experience if you are not familiar with this type of filmmaking. This film is literally all over the place. It jumps back and forth between modern times to ancient times, between current events to hours/days/minutes/seconds ago, and after a certain point it just becomes clear that the film doesn't really know when or where it needs to focus and truly doesn't care. This is fine to an extent, but it also becomes slightly frustrating and eventually grows stale.

As such, "Evil in the Time of Heroes" is a definitive example of the hand-held shakiness, quick cutting, fast paced, bizarre camera angles, seemingly direction-less style which seems to pop up every once in a while (even in mainstream cinema like with "Crank" and "Crank 2: High Voltage"... only amplified).

Furthermore, it becomes clear that one may not even be able to fully appreciate the themes and jokes without some understanding of Greek history and modern life in Athens. Of course there is a large degree of slapstick humour, situational comedy, and an overall absurd awkwardness which can be enjoyed by all. And I certainly valued those aspects. But the completely random pacing of the film, coupled with the preposterous actions its characters take and the bizarre situations that occur, are sometimes a little too much to choke down.

So take this review as a little forewarning on what to expect. "Evil in the Time of Heroes" is NOT your typical horror-comedy along the lines of "Shaun of the Dead", "Dead Alive", "Night of the Creeps", "Re-Animator", "Return of the Living Dead" etc. It is something entirely different... ABSURDLY different. With this in mind, perhaps you will enjoy the film for what it is!

I did go into this expecting to be frightened and instead I found it to be absolutely hilarious- but that's not a bad thing! The characters are funny, if a little shallow, but this is a horror movie so what do you really expect? The film even plays on the stupidity of the horror movie plot conventions (especially relevant to Zombie films) and the characters therein by making no effort to hide the ridiculousness of their survival, adventures and the plot line in general.

I'm not Greek, as I realise some of you other reviewers are, I'm British and I still thought it was fantastic; I saw it at Edinburgh film festival where a respectable crowd watched it laughing in unison at the funny bits and clapping at the end. For such a low budget film it was great, I don't really know what people expect a low budget film to be able to do with 'Hollywood Effects', they cost an arm and a leg and often are just as silly if not worse than this film achieves.

Sure the plot was unlikely, the effects were questionable, but all in all it was funny, entertaining and I was more than happy to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy this bloody brilliant little film from a country only making around 30 films a year!(numbers given by the film's director who did a little talk and was a funny man himself) I would fully recommend this as a comedy-horror film.