EVIL THINGS (2009)

Studio:     Go Show Media
Director:    Dominic Perez
Writer:     Dominic Perez
Producer:  Mario Valdez Steckler, Dominic Perez
Stars:     Laurel Casillo, Morgan Hooper, Torrey Weiss, Ryan Maslyn, Elyssa Mersdorf, Gail Cadden

Review Score:

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Summary:

A mysterious man seemingly stalks five friends celebrating a birthday in a remote woodland home.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Leo Pugliese records a road trip with his friends Miriam Dearing, Tanya Kochen, Mark Schaefer, and Mark’s girlfriend Cassy Crawford. Along the way, an ominous van driver taunts the group by driving dangerously on a snowy road.

The five friends stop at a roadside store for snacks. Everyone is alarmed to see the van pull into the gas station next door. The van briefly trails Miriam’s car when they leave.

The group stops at a diner. The van cruises into the parking lot and stops outside the window. Mark storms outside to confront the driver for harassment, but the van drives away.

Leo, Miriam, Tanya, Mark, and Cassy arrive at a remote house belonging to Miriam’s Aunt Gail to spend the weekend celebrating Miriam’s 21st birthday. Aunt Gail stops by briefly to restore the house’s electricity. The five friends drink, play cards, and joke throughout the night.

The next day, Leo, Miriam, Tanya, Mark, and Cassy get lost while exploring nearby woods. Tempers rise as night falls and strange sounds are heard in the distance. Everyone runs in the dark when one of the animalistic noises seemingly comes closer.

The five friends make it back to the house. Someone calls the house phone twice, but does not speak when Miriam answers.

A knock followed by pounding is heard at the front door. No one is there, but Mark finds a VHS videocassette left on the porch.

Leo, Miriam, Tanya, Mark, and Cassy watch the tape. Edited footage shows the five friends on the road and at the house shot from the van driver’s perspective. Panic escalates when additional footage shows that the driver broke into the house and recorded everyone sleeping.

The phone and power lines are cut. Everyone moves to leave only to discover Miriam’s car is missing. The van drives by outside. The strange noise is heard around the house.

Mark becomes separated from the others. While Mark is attacked behind a closed door, Leo and the three girls lock themselves inside a bedroom. Deeming it safe after they see the van drive away, the four remaining friends go back downstairs.

Everyone becomes separated in an unexpected commotion. The van chases down Miriam outside. Screaming is heard out of frame.

The van driver uses his camera’s night vision to stalk Cassy inside the dark house. The strange sound is heard once more as the van driver attacks Cassy.

The van driver is seen sitting at a suite of video monitors editing the footage together. Additional clips show the van driver stalking a group of student filmmakers in Central Park as his next targets.

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Review:

Like many indie “found footage” horror movies, writer/director Dominic Perez’s “Evil Things” has both good and bad things going for it. That’s being overly generous to the genre. More accurately, “found footage” indie horror is predominantly awful, which actually makes “Evil Things” an exceptional entry since it gets more right than it gets wrong.

Aspiring filmmaker Leo just got a new video camera yesterday. You know what that means. No matter what comes up, he is going to record everything that happens during a road trip with four friends to a remote house in snowy New York woods.

Leo, Miriam, Tanya, Mark, and Cassy are planning to celebrate Miriam’s 21st birthday. On their drive however, the quintet acquires a strange stalker in the form of an ominous van that nearly runs them off the road. That same van follows the friends to a gas station, a diner, and later drives by the isolated house where everyone stays for the weekend.

Speaking of following, “Evil Things” follows the formula “The Blair Witch Project” made (in)famous. This of course mandates disposable exposition where we endure the five friends drinking, goofing, and loudly laughing through throwaway dialogue during extended “getting to know you” sequences. Pressed to come up with content, which is odd since “Evil Things” only runs a brisk 75 minutes before end credits begin, the movie includes a second such segment at the midpoint, when we should be neck deep in suspenseful intrigue instead of backtracking to tack on more inconsequential material.

Yet the reason these scenes don’t become intolerable is because the movie assembles a roster of amateur actors that gels together terrifically, which is a truly rare feat in the realm of homegrown horror. Dominic Perez supposedly supplied a script, but I would believe an admission that the cast improvised their interactions using organic chemistry. Either way, they inhabit their characters so fully that their lines sound entirely unrehearsed.

Gail Cadden appears only briefly as Miriam’s aunt, although her flawless portrayal evokes every characteristic of a caring relative one can think of. Elyssa Mersdorf cries so sweetly when her four friends present her birthday cake, you can believe she is genuinely touched by the gesture. There’s such naturalness behind everyone’s behavior that it becomes simple to accept the film as authentic footage shot by five friends who paid only minimal attention to the camera’s presence.

Once “Evil Things” establishes this realistic tone, grounded feelings of fear fall right into place. Scenes of the van cruising by in darkness stoke unease every time headlights appear. A Predator-like knocking noise in the distance sends unsettling suggestions about what the true terror even is. Uncertainty always hangs in the air, making for a constantly creepy feeling because we aren’t sure if the unseen threat is a simple stalker, extraterrestrial, or even supernatural.

We do still have to briefly belch through a lot of the usual “found footage” hiccups. Framing introduces “Evil Things” as an FBI evidence tape complete with color bars and yet someone still took time to add a score, which is nevertheless appropriately moody, while retaining more than a few questionable inclusions. A ten-minute end credits coda of additional footage also raises an eyebrow regarding relevancy.

I wouldn’t argue against criticisms that the movie treads pedestrian trails such as a slightly slim story, logic gaps, and a few frayed ends on the technical front. But based on the criteria that’s most important for this kind of movie, “Evil Things” is simply effective at being eerie, and that’s something few microbudget “found footage” films are able to capture on camera. If that doesn’t warrant awarding a thumbs up, then no “found footage” indie deserves a recommendation.

Review Score: 75

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