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| Credits |
Directors: Luke C Jackson, Alix Jackson
Starring: Alix Jackson, Ceara Nelson, Ian Seymour, Tim Clark, Emma Jackson, Tanya Stuart
Screenplay: Luke C Jackson, Alix Jackson
Duration: 92 minutes
Country: Australia
Year: 2006 |
When Evil Reigns is a new film from Melbourne based indie film
makers Alix and Luke Jackson, who were heavily
involved in many areas of the film's production,
including acting. The film was shot on mini-DV
and took six years to complete.
When Evil Reigns opens a bit
chaotically. Two runners get into an argument
as it starts to rain, and the argument gets physically
violent. A Good Samaritan biker intervenes, but
the male runner goes after her. Instead of phoning
the police, she goes home and gets her partner.
He also doesn't phone the police, but instead
goes to confront the assailant. Fortunately, the
assailant is still there, along with the corpse
of the other runner (I'm guessing the biker
lady lived close by?), but things don't
go so well for the Good Samaritan.
Despite being a bit jumpy, this intro held quite
a lot of promise. Unfortunately, from there the
film takes us to a Uni campus, and introduces
most of our main players. The film settles in
to a much slower pace, as we see some silly Uni
stuff that is ultimately not very important. Eventually
the rain returns, and evil possesses those caught
out in it. The possessed trap some students and
staff inside the university. Being locked in while
waiting to be attacked by possessed people, a
common theme for first time horror directors…
When I first put When Evil Reigns on, I was dismayed to find it was a 92 minute
shot on video movie, because a feature length
run time for these low budget efforts usually
equals padding, and lots of it. While I'm
not sure I'd say When Evil Reigns is padded, there are certainly elaborate, ponderous
set ups that allow the viewer to get ahead of
the movie plot wise. There's also a lot
of chit-chat, which causes a different problem,
since some of the dialogue can be tough to understand
due to audio issues (which hopefully will be fixed
for the official DVD release). With the general
pacing off, the film is way too slow. That's
too bad, because it's a pretty good idea,
and a strong feature length film could've
been made of it.
The editing is surprisingly competent within
a scene (bar the action heavy opening), except
for the standard low budget problems of unconvincing
fight scenes. I was pleased that in terms of editing,
I could always tell what was going on, which doesn't
always happen in these low budget films. It's
too bad entire sections of the film could've
been edited out, but at least what was there remained
coherent. The editing is also restrained, not
the flashy "Look how cool and innovative
I am" jumbled mess a lot of burgeoning filmmakers
use, but there are a few cool style tricks used.
The possessed are sort of like cannibalistic
versions of the infected from 28 Days
Later; and The Thing (1982) and Bill Shattner's best work, The
Devil's Rain, were possible sources
of inspiration. Unfortunately, with a killer in
rain gear prominent towards the end, the film
also echoes the I Know What You Did Last
Summer series. Most of the time the
possessed in When Evil Reigns do a decent job, up until the end when all of
the sudden they all just stand around waiting
to be dispatched.
The film was made for $5,000, and the acting
isn't bad, especially with that budget in
mind. The film does have a few good gags, and
I really like the idea of rain = death and mayhem
for a country that always seems to be in drought.
I think there's room here for a remake,
or a sequel, and hopefully once the Jackson's
have honed their skills, we'll get a tighter,
engaging, indie horror flick from them. |