Evilution starts as ex military researcher & soldier Darren Hall (producer Eric Peter-Kaiser) rents a room in an apartment block after coming home from a tour in Iraq where he witnessed some horrendous things & has brought a little something back with him to, an alien substance that turns people into mindless zombies (the target audience of this film then?). While doing his own research to try & understand whatever he wants to understand one of his neighbours Random (Noel Gugliemi) is shot in a gang incident so Darren uses the bright orange serum to revive Random but he, like the other's, turns into a ravenous flesh-eating zombie that spreads the zombie virus to whoever he bites. It's up to Darren & army guy Sgt. Gabriel Collins (Tim Colceri) to destroy the infected people in order to contain the virus & stop the zombie plague from reaching the outside world where the whole human race would be at risk...
Directed by Chris Conlee this is yet another dull horror film made by people who think just because they have a camcorder they can make a film, the best I can say about it is that it's competent & passes the time without being too painful to watch but there's little here to really recommend. For a start the DVD cover is totally misleading, there's little or no action in it & the first forty minutes is more like a poorly written soap opera full of clichéd dramatics as Darren moves into a new apartment & has problems with noisy neighbours & falls for the pretty girl who lives down the hall, after the opening few minutes there is no zombie action at all until the forty five minute mark which is just to long to keep us waiting as quite frankly I could see half the audience already having fell asleep or just turned the damned thing off. Once the horror aspect does kick in there's nothing here we haven't seen before & it's pretty forgettable stuff, there's no inventive kills or gore scenes, all of the action is confined to about three apartment block hallways & a stairway before a double ending which leaves things open for a sequel, I shudder at the thought. The character's are pretty bad, Darren is a really bland hero who barely does or says anything & why did Darren bring Random back to life anyway? Darren obviously knew about the consequences of using the Re-Animator (1985) style glowing serum & he didn't even really know Random anyway other than being threatened by him at gunpoint. Also if a man has something which literally has the potential to wipe out the human race why would the US military send one middle aged bloke in a tight fitting t-shirt to get it back? Wouldn't they send in everything they had & ask questions later? Wouldn't they tap his phone & follow him? If they thought he posed so much of a risk wouldn't they just kill the guy? The alien itself is never seen, it's referred to as an alien but we only ever see a bright orange serum which is injected into people so where's the alien?
The zombies in Evilution are of the infected people running around variety like in 28 Days Later... (2002) rather than the slow moving walking dead as seen in The Night of the Living Dead (1968). The gore is disappointing with a few gory bite wounds & a bit of blood splatter but nothing else & nothing memorable or creative & how this won an award for best special effects is beyond me as the blood looks so thin it's more like red wine. There's one wholly gratuitous naked breast shot as a woman wearing a towel is attacked & it comes right off thus getting both blood & breast's in the same scene. The whole affair is predictable, it's not scary or atmospheric & there's no build up of tension either. Very by the numbers.
With a supposed budget of about $1,200,000 all I'll say is where did all the money go? There's special effects are minimal & cheap, there's little or no CGI, it all takes place in one locations over a few sets & there's only three or four leading actors. The production values are reasonable & there's none of that hand-held shaky camcorder look or any quick editing which is nice but hardly worth recommending it for. The acting is poor with bland performances throughout.
Evilution is another horror film that tries to be hip & cool but fails with a slow plot, little or no gore worth mentioning & bland leading actors. Not to be confused with the infinitely better sci-fi horror comedy Evolution (2001) which is actually a great film, unlike this.
Directed by Chris Conlee this is yet another dull horror film made by people who think just because they have a camcorder they can make a film, the best I can say about it is that it's competent & passes the time without being too painful to watch but there's little here to really recommend. For a start the DVD cover is totally misleading, there's little or no action in it & the first forty minutes is more like a poorly written soap opera full of clichéd dramatics as Darren moves into a new apartment & has problems with noisy neighbours & falls for the pretty girl who lives down the hall, after the opening few minutes there is no zombie action at all until the forty five minute mark which is just to long to keep us waiting as quite frankly I could see half the audience already having fell asleep or just turned the damned thing off. Once the horror aspect does kick in there's nothing here we haven't seen before & it's pretty forgettable stuff, there's no inventive kills or gore scenes, all of the action is confined to about three apartment block hallways & a stairway before a double ending which leaves things open for a sequel, I shudder at the thought. The character's are pretty bad, Darren is a really bland hero who barely does or says anything & why did Darren bring Random back to life anyway? Darren obviously knew about the consequences of using the Re-Animator (1985) style glowing serum & he didn't even really know Random anyway other than being threatened by him at gunpoint. Also if a man has something which literally has the potential to wipe out the human race why would the US military send one middle aged bloke in a tight fitting t-shirt to get it back? Wouldn't they send in everything they had & ask questions later? Wouldn't they tap his phone & follow him? If they thought he posed so much of a risk wouldn't they just kill the guy? The alien itself is never seen, it's referred to as an alien but we only ever see a bright orange serum which is injected into people so where's the alien?
The zombies in Evilution are of the infected people running around variety like in 28 Days Later... (2002) rather than the slow moving walking dead as seen in The Night of the Living Dead (1968). The gore is disappointing with a few gory bite wounds & a bit of blood splatter but nothing else & nothing memorable or creative & how this won an award for best special effects is beyond me as the blood looks so thin it's more like red wine. There's one wholly gratuitous naked breast shot as a woman wearing a towel is attacked & it comes right off thus getting both blood & breast's in the same scene. The whole affair is predictable, it's not scary or atmospheric & there's no build up of tension either. Very by the numbers.
With a supposed budget of about $1,200,000 all I'll say is where did all the money go? There's special effects are minimal & cheap, there's little or no CGI, it all takes place in one locations over a few sets & there's only three or four leading actors. The production values are reasonable & there's none of that hand-held shaky camcorder look or any quick editing which is nice but hardly worth recommending it for. The acting is poor with bland performances throughout.
Evilution is another horror film that tries to be hip & cool but fails with a slow plot, little or no gore worth mentioning & bland leading actors. Not to be confused with the infinitely better sci-fi horror comedy Evolution (2001) which is actually a great film, unlike this.