Evil (2006)

Very well executed

Perfect cast and a good story

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

We all hate the Hollywood remakes of foreign movies, like {REC) / Quarantine, Ju-on / The Grudge, Ringu / Ring, Nattevagten / Nightwatch etc... But where's the Hollywood remake when you need one?! Because To Kako, or Evil, is exactly the kind of movie that might have been good given more money, better script based on the original one, (better) actors and so on. The original script is very well-intended, the author really likes zombie movies, but his literary vein endures only for the first half of the film; after that, it seems the writer couldn't wait for the film to end so he threw in some fast jokes and zombie shooting and that was that. There are some good tricks, some good ideas, few very good scenes, the fight looks bad but at least they tried to think, if not choreograph, every move. The movie makers also obey the rules, even the rule that says every rule must be broken. For example, Yorgos Noussias' zombies don't die exclusively by brain destroying, but can also be killed by stabbing in the chest – at least if the scene (one of the zombie that was put to sleep in the restaurant scene) was intentional. Of course, To Kako is a film exclusively for die hard zombie fans (pun pretty much intended). Only we can watch such cheap productions, achingly bad acting, stupid character motivations, dialogs ripped off from another 100 movies, artificial conflicts, fake fight scenes, horribly lighting, goofs (like the blood spurting out from a zombie cut in two – but spurting out and upwards from the low half – as the heart was of course in the upper half!), confusing editing at times... and I won't continue the list, because, despite all those shortcomings, I still liked the movie. To Kako is pretty much a kind of The Elephant Man (but the character, not the film): inside there's a great person, but you hate the way he looks. It's hard to look at him, but you ignore his appearance because you know down there there's good soul. As for the horror factor, yes, it exists, although achieved more by editing (the sudden bursts of the zombies…) and sound, which is the easy way to do it. Nevertheless, this film had one thing that was more scary and horrific than any other; it really made my hair rise and my teeth ache… and I'm talking about the music. The score was absolutely idiot, ruined many scenes and also killed any attempt to disbelief suspension. On the other hand, one of the best thing in this movie is its humor. I mean not in the sense that it has many jokes or wise cracking, but there is one of the funniest (or rather hysterical!) moments I have seen in zombie flicks – the one involving Argyris and the zombie who interrupted his fun. Oh, and speaking about humor… or maybe goofs?... or maybe genre transgressing?... anyway… I didn't get the scene at 00:37:27, with Argyris hiding behind a, like, 6 inch thick tree… Was it some attempt to put some cartoon fun in a zombie movie?... Hard to say! Finally, the actors. As I still liked this film, I will only add that here at IMDb it's mentioned a sequel will come out next year, starring Billy Zane. Let me just say Mr. Zane is going to be the Dustin Hoffman of the cast. Not a word more!

OK, i wont even bother with the story. you probably know what this is about. it is quite poor and keep in mind this piece of garbage is coming from a new "filmmaker" who had the nerve to call Romero's Land Of The Dead an "Ok b-movie" and admit their favorite film is The Blues Brothers!!! If that is the case then what should we call this one? a Z-movie perhaps? The only good actor is Meletis Georgiadis while the rest suck badly. Very bad "actors", so bad they are hard to believe. But its wouldn't be fair to blame everything on them- the lines they had to deliver were pretty stupid to begin with, so at least thats an excuse. Lame humor, really, really lame. Humor in this film will only make retarded people laugh, really. Jackson did it successfully in Braindead, the difference is that he is a filmmaker while Nousias or whatever he is called, is a talentless hack. Very bad Mtv-style direction, cinematography that hardly allows you to see what is going on in the night scenes, you get the picture. Some decent effects here and there are ruined by the incompetence of the director. And the music score is so bad that just makes you want to stop watching. Its the most annoying music score in recent years.This is still quality stuff compared to the movies of Macabro Films/F. Halatsis but that still isn't saying much!

Not the best zombie movie ever (a few characters do things a bit too stupid, not that that is unheard of in the zombie genre), but a damned fine addition to the canon. The characters are likable, and it's not always obvious who's going to turn into zombie chow and when. Most importantly, you grow to empathize with the characters -- this isn't just some big dumb video game. And the ending shot is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in one of these movies. I'm sure there are some Greek nuances I'm missing, and maybe even cultural in-jokes, but even without that it was a very enjoyable film. It's not as much a comedy as some seem to claim, but there are humorous moments, most of them involving the slimy yet heroic taxi driver character. But this is less like Return of the Living Dead than Dawn of the Dead 2004, where some moments of levity break up lots of tension. The origin of the zombie plague seems a bit odd, but then again the origins of these things are never the real point of the movies, are they?