Evil Laugh

Evil Laugh is a poor attempt at trying to jump on the 80's slasher band wagon. The gore factor is OK, but the cheese, oh my God the 80's cheese! The music is borderline unbearable, and the dancing doesn't help either. It does make you laugh though, as does some of the acting. The chest rubbing joke was cracking me up. Not the worst I've seen, and you might find it somewhat entertaining, but not because of scares. I dunno where the hooded skull character on the cover comes from either. The killer looks more like a 5 foot tall burglar wearing some type of wrestling head gear. This is the second "Lucky 13" flick I've seen, and they're not exactly winning me over.

Yeah, it's dreadfully bad, but in it's infinite badness is an enjoyable film, which one can watch with friends on a friday night and laugh your ass off. The dialogue is ridiculous, the acting is horrible, the death scenes are hilarious (one guys gets his head cooked in a microwave) and everything else is just lazy. I can't think of a funnier movie.

An on-the-cheap, shot-on-video and quickly made 80s slasher that's enthusiastically pitched and made the more interesting for being made by Dominick Brasica (which Friday the 13th fans would pick up as being the memorable first death in "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning") in what feels like a labour of love. It might not be ranking up their with the best the 80s had to offer and could be seen as just another slasher, but the quirky "Evil Laugh" had its moments. Even some creativity, as some elements actually reminded of Wes Craven's 90s slasher "Scream". Plenty of self-knowing quips feed the shonky script (mainly from a horror-buff character) and there's a plethora of references to other horror mediums (horror magazine Fangoira to "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th"). The story is simple, as it builds up the standard conventions and its over-the-top macabre (which includes some dancing while cleaning and jittery music score) where a group of young medical students decide help out a friend re-open an abandoned orphanage, although they don't know of its terrible past which saw ten years ago the custodian murder the residents. But this weekend is not going to be any ordinary weekend, as people start disappearing and find themselves at the mercy of a jump suit wearing killer with a mask and beanie. Yeah, sadly the murderer doesn't live up the illustration on the artwork and naturally the heroine points out the horror fan for being the murderer. The execution does match the budget, as it's a slapdash of blood, nudity and humour. Sometimes things would happen off-screen, but other times we get flashes of tatty gore. The random performances are acceptable with Kim McKamy making a solid heroine and a decent Steven Baio (who also produced and co-wrote). Nothing new, but it's full of spontaneous energy.

"No legend is going to scare me".

The plot to this movie, well it's that same old routine Slasher movie plot = A couple of friends travel out to a house in the country to fix it up and make it a foster home again. Ten years ago the foster home was shut down as a madman called Martin killed all the kids. They are supposed to meet Jerry at the house but when he never shows up, the friends start to suspect that something's wrong. They decide to try to not think about it too much and have some fun instead and start working in the morning. That might not be such a good idea since some of them will probably never get to see the morning as it seems as if Martin has come back to the house.

Well for one thing I have to say the title is half right it does have a laugh but it sure as hell wasn't an evil laugh but the cover is rather deceiving I was expecting someone in a reaper mask to pop up and kill the teens, but nope, no reaper mask in sight. We do get a very silly mask near the ending though, which we were only to see in the last 2 or 3 killings and not in the first ones, was there some point of that.

The directing is so and so, nothing too special, but I have to say that I was impressed by the use of lights in the dark basement, you can see everything that you're meant to see in the dark and that's not very common in horror movies, especially not slashers. But to be honest the movie isn't all bad I mean it does have one original kill death by microwave that's the only reason why I gave this movie an extra star.

All in all I didn't think this was that bad but I have to say that it didn't live up to my expectations, nor its box art. For a slasher fan like myself, this was quite entertaining. But I really think you have to be a slasher fan to be able to watch this movie since it is pretty cheesy and slow in some parts. I might watch this again and see if it grows in my mind, though, I highly suspect that it won't.

EVIL LAUGH features one of the most irritating killers in horror movie history, picking off annoying med students one by one. All the while cackling like an imbecile. Said maniac also wears a mask reminiscent of those worn by Mexican wrestlers.

This movie does get points for being a parody of the slasher genre, exposing some of the absurdities therein. Yes, the story is lackluster. Yes, the characters are just animated furniture. However, it's humorous in spots, and its overall cheeeze factor wins the day...