BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Danger After Dark
MSRP: $24.98
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 83 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- English Subtitles
- Photo Gallery
- Trailer
The Pitch
How do you say ‘poop’ in Greek? To Kako.
The Humans
Meletis Georgiadis. Yannis Katsambas. Andreas Kontopoulos. Pepi Moschovakou. Argiris Thanasoulas. Mykeyboardis Takingabeating.
This MAY have been shot on video.
The Nutshell
Greek television finally got Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later (which I assume was known as XXVIII Days Later over there*). People who knew how to do special effects were watching and decided to emulate, filmmaking chops be damned. The result is To Kako, which never would have been released had it not come from Greece. It’s like when a ballplayer makes it to the major leagues simply because he’s Australian or something.
"Let’s parade the oddball out, see what happens."
"And the winner, by split decision…"
The Lowdown
"You’ve given us a mouthful of Greek Salad." – Joe Pilato, Day of the Dead
That line of dialogue literally should have been the first and last time a zombie film had anything to do with the Greeks. It’s not that the filmmakers of Evil (To Kako) are not deserving of the chance to make a zombie film, it’s just that they don’t deserve to make one. This is a statement I’m ashamed to say retroactively as a response to the evil that is Evil.
The plot of the movie involves people going batshit and biting the living piss out of each other. Hirsute male and female zombie sorts shamble about and try to hurt the innocent, but lo and behold, people are there to kill them in ways that are inventive if you’ve been in stasis since 1974. I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s apparent from frame one that this is a movie built entirely around a few remotely inventive kills and an editing technique that seems the bastard offspring Run Lola Run and an episode of 24. Without the savvy. Shot on video, the film features tons of split screens and fast cuts and it seems as if the goal seems as much to be as much about unleashing jets of blood in the air (a favorite of To Kako, I counted at least five lingering shots of torsos shooting little red bloodfarts) and jagged editing techniques as it is about delivering horror. Actually, there isn’t much horror. Just people running about, sitting about, and delivering awkwardly choreographed second death to non-actors.
Corey won the gold medal in squash.
That’s really it. A few people in a cave get attacked by a first-person cameraman and go batshit. People go batshit at supper. People go batshit at a futbol game. A few boring people (including the Jennifer Grey of Greece) band together to fight the evil and we as an audience look at our watch and wait for either the end credits or the merciful Grim Reaper to take us home. It is a bad movie. A dumb movie. Proof positive that though every single person on Earth thinks they have the definitive zombie movie in their head or at least a great contribution to the genre, more often than not they have Jack Elam at best.
Plus, the kills are telegraphed. There’s no deftness or creativity to it, and the praised "last shot" of the film is laughable. It’s not cool or epic, nor does it hammer home the deep message of the film. It’s a crappy digital shot on a crappy digital movie that looks like it was shot using someone’s crappy digital watch and it has the worst kung-fu since some guy walked around a corner holding kung and collided with a guy carrying fu.
Fuck Evil. It’s a formula zombie flick. The worst formula ever.
"δίγαμμα δίγαμμα, δίγαμμα Shitstuffs" …………………. "κάππα ήτα ἄλφα!"
"I did what you asked, now please no more To Kako" …… "Can’t afford shoes!"
The Package
"You’ve given us a mouthful of Greek Salad." – Patron of Mellow Mushroom Pizza
There are thankfully almost no special features on this DVD, a fact I am so proud of. Typically, no-budget horror flicks that suck the life from a man have 11 commentary tracks, 9 documentaries, and a photo gallery of everything everyone did on the set every day. This one just has the film and some photos and a trailer.
I hate this movie a lot.
2.5 out of 10