Evil Town

Awful, wretched and plain lousy... Apparently this film was cut together from the remains of three unfinished films??? Maybe you wouldn't guess it right away (there's plenty of films out there that are an incoherent mess), but the ending really makes the film look like it was never finished.

While extremely painful and super-boring to sit through, here's a few laughs I had:

-- There's this blond bimbo (apparantly an ex-playmate) that keeps on running topless during the first act of the movie. And boy, look at those big cahoocha's! You'd say the director would show some respect and love when filming those two wonders of nature, but one "smoochy"-scene has her pressing her naked breasts against her boyfriend's chest in such a way that they just look plain wrong. Like one of them is mutated, or something. Best part has her running topless through the woods: bounce, wobble, shake, bump!

-- There's a couple of scenes in which old people drug a young couple and fight with a young dude... all in slow-motion! They wave syringes, they get kicked in the face, fall on the ground, wrestle with the young dude... all in slow-motion!

-- You'll never believe the town's evil doctor! Not only he can't act, he also has a speech-problem of sorts. The guy just can't articulate and stutters his every line. "Pituitary gland" comes out sounding "Patwooatwy gland" and even a simple word like "country" sounds like "cµntwee".

And will you listen to that downright abominable and most inappropriate music on the soundtrack...

EVIL TOWN is one of the worst "small town with a secret"-horror films I've ever seen. Oh, and in case you're wondering: There's no zombies in it.

Two points for those cahoocha's as they always come in pairs. And that's it.

Somewhere in the mid-90s, when I was actually too young for it, I read a terrifying book entitled "Darkness" by John Saul. The plot, if I remember correctly, was about a community of elderly people that structurally extracted a serum from the younger inhabitants and passers-by to maintain their own youthfulness. Back then already, I thought about how cool it must be if there existed a horror film version of this book.

Of course, the idea has been used in horror films already, and apparently even long before "Darkness" got published in 1991. Today I found out that "Evil Town" also features a very reminiscent plot, but despite the enormous potential, it's one of the worst and most boring horror movies of the 80s (and that's saying something).

"Evil Town" can only be described as hectic, unstructured, and hopelessly inept. What do you expect from a film that has three different directors and four different scriptwriters? What started out in the early 70s as a good idea by a promising young director (Curtis "L. A. Confidential" Hanson) quickly ended up in production hell and oblivion, until it was picked up again during the 80s and expanded with gratuitous nudity and dull sub plots. The nudity, primarily provided by voluptuous Lynda Wiesmeier, still stands as the highlight of the film; - even though shot quite distastefully. The essence of the story, namely the mad doctor and his rejuvenating serum, is totally ruined by the lack of tension, the absence of half-decent special effects, and by the actor (Dean Jagger) who can't even pronounce simple medical terms correctly.

My review was written in November 1987 after watching the film on Trans World Entertainment video cassette.

"Evil Town" is a perfunctory horror thriller, which began production in 1984 and is notable mainly for the oddity of four directors credited with shooting it. Pic is a direct-to-home-video title.

Vet talent includes Dean Jagger as a mild scientist doing aging research involving the pituitary gland, which requires human organ donors. Various inhabitants of the remote village Smalltown (population: 666) help out by capturing unwary tourists and travelers, knocking them out and delivering them to Jagger's clinic.

James Keach is a young doctor out camping with his girlfriend and another couple, whom Jagger tries to shanghai to become his research assistant. Ultimately, Keach and his girl escape, Jagger is killed and the clinic patients riot. Film seems unfinished, with unsatisfactory stock footage in place of an ending.

Standard slasher horror film action to dispatch a series of young campers is highlighted by very lengthy topless scenes by former Playboy model Lynda Wiesmeier, obviously constituting the pic's potential draw in pay-cable showings. Tech credits are weak and fans of Jagger or other vets like Regis Toomey and Dabbs Greer will be disappointed by their work here.

The most interesting thing about Evil Town was most definitely the presence of breasts, big huge bouncing breasts at that. I couldn't stop laughing when the woman is being chased through the forest and as she runs, her boobs wobble up and down like a yo-yo. There's plenty of shots of them too. After this is over the story soon gets dull. The deaths are goreless and the plot seems to be going nowhere...until the end, when all is revealed.

The overall story is vaguely interesting, but it's the sort of thing that's been done before. I notice someone else described this as a zombie film, which is untrue. There are no zombies to be found at all. The only good things going for Evil Town are breasts, as mentioned, and a fairly good musical score.

This movie is for B horror movie lovers only. The idea of the film is really good, though the execution is awful. The acting is terrible, though you might recognise a few actors. Dean Jagger, who plays the evil doctor looks the spitting image of Arthur C Clarke, which in itself is creepy. Surprised this hasn't been remade, in the right hands it could be good.