To kako

"To kako" is a Greek Comedy and Horror movie and I have to tell that it surprised me nicely. As Greek I have seen many Greek movies but the most of them were comedies and love movies, for the first time I saw a Greek horror movie and I liked it.

In this movie we see three friends who found a cave in which a devil force was sleeping for a long time and these three friends awakened it. After that this devil force transforms the unsuspecting citizens of Athens into zombies, and we observe a group of people who are trying very hard to survive from these zombies.

Finally I liked this movie because of the effects which are really nice for a Greek movie and in many occasions I am sure that you will laugh very much with them, the sounds of it are really cool and make a creepy environment.

I think it's fair to say that Greece is hardly renowned for its horror movie output (to date I have only seen one other scary film from this country—Nico Mastorakis' infamous 'video nasty' Island of Death), but having just enjoyed zombie romp 'To Kako' (AKA Evil), I reckon that the Greeks should spend less time smashing plates and more time smashing skulls, 'cos they're actually pretty good at it!

Director Yorgos Noussias begins his film with the discovery of an enormous cavern on the outskirts of Athens, within which lurks an evil force that is capable of transforming people into flesh-craving zombies. After initially possessing three construction workers who investigate the cavern, the force spreads rapidly throughout the city leaving only a small group of survivors—buxom teenager Jenny, her sexy neighbour, a randy taxi driver, a soldier, and a football fan—desperately searching for a way out of their predicament.

Whilst this might not be the most imaginative of plots, Noussias's superb handling of his material more than makes up for the lack of originality in narrative: genuinely atmospheric scenes of horror are expertly combined with bloody moments of knockabout splat-stick comedy to make this a thoroughly entertaining 83 minutes of scares, OTT gore and laughs. And for a film with such a small budget, this film looks absolutely fabulous, with great cinematography (the shots of the deserted city are particularly cool), snazzy editing (the MTV stylings are a little over-done, perhaps, but it's still technically impressive stuff), and loads of amazing special effects (both traditional and digital).

The blurb on the DVD packaging describes the film as 'a rapid-fire series of over-the-top-gross-out gags and gore' but I feel that this description does not really do the film justice. Yes, 'To Kako' offers gore-hounds a smörgåsbord of splatterific effects and bad-taste humour—crushed heads, decapitations, eviscerations, and juicy impalements—but there is more to Noussias' movie than just a mindless comedy gore-fest: in addition to making viewers laugh, the director also manages to deliver carefully constructed scenes of tension and excitement, allows his viewers to care about his characters before he has them pulled apart and eaten, and presents an excellent downbeat ending that sees the last four survivors facing insurmountable odds as the undead close in for the kill, thus qualifying 'To Kako' as a bona fide horror experience.

I didn't really expect much from this movie, being a Greek zombie movie and all, but my prejudice was quickly put to shame. "Evil" (or "To Kako") turned out to be somewhat of a surprise.

Think a mixture of "28 Days Later" and Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" (aka "Braindead"), then you sort of have the thing that is "Evil".

Personally, I am not keen on zombies that are super agile and running around, as they are in this movie. That being said, then the director of this movie managed to uphold a very "28 Days Later" feeling all throughout the entire movie, and for that, thumbs up.

There was a good amount of gore in the movie as well, though the movie was fairly low-budget, they managed to make the effects look nice and realistic enough. And again, thumbs up on that.

However, one thing that didn't really sit well with me was the characters in the movie. They weren't really given much space to unfold or develop. And as such, they were fairly two-dimensional. There were some attempts thrown in at being funny, particularly from the Argyris guy, whether or not that is good, is a personal preference, I, however, just didn't find the forced humor at place in the movie.

Now, this movie is of course a mile and a stone away from being up to most Hollywood productions, but still, if you are a zombie aficionado, there is some good stuff here and good entertainment, and "Evil" should - and deserves - a place in the movie collection of any zombie aficionado.

So you might wonder why I am only rating "Evil" a 5 out of 10 rating. Well, simply because I don't find agile, running zombies particularly enjoyable, and also because of the misplaced attempts of humor in the movie. "Evil" has a lot to offer, but with some adjustments, it could have been so much more. But with "Evil", Greece has put itself on the world map of the zombie infection.

On a closing note, then the ending of the movie was just priceless. It was the best part of the entire movie. And what a way to leave the audience hanging. Several rotting thumbs up for the bold ending of the movie.

An evil force is awakened in downtown Athens transforming the unsuspecting citizens into raving zombies. The few survivors will have to fight hard for their lives. To the death.

I have come to have fairly low expectations from the zombie subgenre of horror films. Every year there seems to be one good one and fifty bad ones. For every "Dead Snow" or "Zombieland" we get any number of kids with a $50 budget slapping makeup on and filming themselves trudging through the city... and it gets old.

That being said, this was a pleasant surprise. Not being overly familiar with Greek cinema I was not sure what to expect -- would there be a budget? Could the actors act? Could the director direct? I am pleased to say the film had all three.

While at times it devolves into poor computer graphics, it is largely an entertaining horror comedy, with more than enough blood and guts to satisfy just about anyone. I loved the reminiscence of some of the great splatter films ("Evil Dead" and "Dead Alive" come to mind). And the clever shots reminded me -- in a good way -- of "Run Lola Run".

There are also some very well-placed crane and overhead shots. If these were real (and not a computer trick), they were incredible. And even if they were a computer trick, they were a darn good one. I would gladly recommend this to any blood-and-guts zombie fan.

"To Kako" (aka "Evil") was a film that I didn't expect much out of. A Greek zombie film seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it a noble effort despite it's flaws.

The film does come off as fairly novice. It may be cultural boundaries, but I am also picky. Certain people around here call this film "trash", but I don't think that is fair. Compared to Romero's films, EVERY zombie film COULD be considered somewhere between second rate and "trash". This film is somewhere in between, but is worth a look if you like the genre.

What I did like about the film what what they were able to do with an obviously limited budget. The acting is nothing above average but also not "horrible" as some have suggested. Given the budget, the prosthetics and other optical FX were passable. I was relieved to not see an assault of CGI animated gore. I found a couple of the effects laughable, but others to be much better.

There are come continuity flaws, and some moments where the film drags, but the story is fairly well crafted, and the the gore-hounds in the audience will be happy at the amount of splatter and nastiness. Also, some of the dialog moves rather fast, and you may find yourself having to read a bit quicker than usual. But if you can get past these few limitations, you may find this to be an enjoyable movie. I would give it a 4 or 5 normally, but since it is a cut above the majority of non-Romero zombie films, I gave it a 6. You zombie buffs see it for yourselves and decide for yourselves.