Evangeline

In a very, very bad mix! I see some positive reviews on Evangeline, so I'll try not to fully bash it, but in my honest opinion, this was down right bad!

The camera work looks terrible and annoying. There is pretty much no acting to mention, no real dialogue, the plot is used and badly executed, the killings are a joke, the ending fits the movie. Will be one of my shorter comments cause I have pretty much nothing good to say about it, so I'll just give you a warning here.

Stay away from this one. It fails on all levels!

Cheers!

The movie starts with some voice over about evil. We then see some serial killer having his way with a victim. Next we meet Evangeline, some religious girl starting college. Her roommate is some Asian girl who looks like she's in her 30s. Together with some other friend they decide to take the innocent Eva to a frat party where she gets completely drunk.

Some other day she meets a frat guy who takes her to a cabin in the woods where he beats her up. He calls his friends to get rid of her and they beat her up some more and dump her somewhere in the woods thinking she's dead. But she's not. Instead something possesses her and she revives. She's found by some guys who live in the woods. One of them wants to take advantage of her, while the other two guys protect her.

Now she/it begins her mission to take revenge on the guys. And things get bloody, but also weird. There's a torture chamber with a woman there, and I thought this was the serial killer's lair, but I'm not sure. Eventually though, as if things weren't bad enough for Eva, she also has a run-in with the serial killer.

After she's beaten up, the movie takes a turn and emphasizes visuals over story and dialogue. We get lots of jarring sequences of Eva/the creature. Things aren't clear, not much is said. In the end though this is somewhat of a supernatural version of I Spit on Your Grave that's also less graphic. The turn toward the visual is more characteristic of a horror movie made in the 2000s instead of a movie made in 2013. So if you put it among those violent sepia-colored movies Evangeline isn't all that bad. It succeeds at getting the audience to feel for Eva and despise the villains, but not much else. It's not an involving movie, you only care for the lead character once she's beaten and abused. It could have been stronger movie had there been more character development.

Whoa Nelly, Where to start! The acting, believe it or not is not that bad (standard low budget fare), but everything else is an absolute mess. the storyline, continuity, direction, screenplay and worst of all the editing are horrendous. It all adds up to a pile of 💩

This movie has some bad reviews here, but I thought it was quite good. The movie isn't so much scary as it is interesting. I found it very artful in it's delivery of the plot, leaving a lot for the viewer to interpret. Which is kind of refreshing compared to the hit you over the head style of Hollywood plot development.

I also enjoyed how there wasn't a lot of talking in the movie. A lot of the character development was done subtly.

The acting was decent, and the special effects are pretty much what you'd expect for a low budget movie. I found it intriguing and open to interpretation. Very well directed, and a worth while watch.

I think maybe the people who put this thing together wanted to tell the story of a woman scorned. I'm guessing that there was some sort of proverb, or old wives tale, possibly from an Asian culture, that fed into this idea, as well. I'm also guessing that the writer and director wanted us as viewers to travel emotionally with Evangeline throughout this film.

I say these things, because they never actually made themselves apparent.

If you've seen "The Crow" or "Jennifer's Body," skip this one. At least then, you won't have to watch those in the future and be reminded of this.

However, if you want to take notes on what to avoid when making a movie, please, indulge. You'll learn how to create a movie containing one dimensional characters, no back story, plot lines that come out of no-where and disappear mid stream, and a general feeling of "what the...?" when the credits start rolling.

Tip of the hat. Good day.