‘Let’s Be Evil’ is an Utter Disappointing Movie (Review)

Written by: Daniel Hadley

Directed by: Martin Owen

Cast: Kara Tointon, Jamie Bernadette, Isabelle Allen

Okay so this movie was total garbage… boy what a disappointing pile of garbage this was. I’ll admit that my disappointment only stems from the fact that the poster for this movie was pretty cool. As the old saying goes never judge a book by its multi neon coloured movie poster. My poor knowledge of old proverbs aside, I’ll get into why this movie was a total waste of my time and hopefully I’ll save who ever reads this the time of sitting through this nonsense, so here goes.

Three candidates are chosen to take part in an experimental program to help educate some very intelligent young children housed inside an advanced facility. All the while our trio and the clever little tykes are made to wear a set of smart goggles that allow them to interact with all of the facility’s many holographic learning tools and also speak with the in-house AI Arial, who instructs our group on their day to day activities. Oh yeah, one last thing, for some indiscernible reason without the goggles on the facility is pitch black. Work that one out.

So there’s your set up and it doesn’t take too long before the genius kids go all psycho and turn on their mentors, and there you have your horror movie. Now the problem lies in the fact that these are – at the end of the day – just unarmed children. Really, how dangerous could they possibly be? The answer is ‘not very’ but to what appear to be the weakest adults in movie history these are the most dangerous and deadly of foes.

That’s where this movie falls completely flat. These children should pose no threat, but apparently the mere sight of them is enough to throw our characters into a fit of shaking dread. No, I’m sorry but no, they are children dammit! Given the rules of the facility all you’d need to do is knock their glasses off and you’ve won: game over psycho murder kids. but no, the characters don’t even conceive of such an idea. Even though it’s made clear these three have been chosen for their superior intelligence, they act like total morons and get trapped in one easily escapable situation after another.

In what could have been an interesting idea the movie is shot from our three character POV’s as they wear the above mentioned goggles. But this idea is given no thought and never really justifies itself other than to appear a little more artsy, I suppose. Maniac with Elijah Wood did something similar but that was to give the audience an idea of what it was like to see through the eyes of a killer and really get into his head. This movie just does it I suppose because within the rules that are set up, the audience would see nothing but total darkness and a few flashing lights because as the movie establishes, without the goggles its nothing but pitch black hallways.

After the first of our group bites it I totally failed to suspend my disbelief, as a full grown man struggles to convincingly convey that he was being overpowered by a few small children. Seriously it was pathetic, then the film moves along briskly to a climax that makes no sense and gives absolutely no explanation. Needless to say I did not enjoy my time with this movie. The only thing I did like were that parts of the soundtrack seem to have been lifted straight from It Follows.

So if you feel like watching a group of full grown adults get somehow killed by small, unarmed children, then give this movie a watch. But if you don’t want to totally waste your time, watch anything else; watch your food cooking in a microwave, at least that builds to something satisfying.

Rating: 0/5