Review By: Rob Sibley
Dropping Evil is a mind fuck of a
movie, it's soul goal is to fuck with you. It accomplishes all of
this in spades. I love it when an Independent film shoots for the
stars. What the filmmakers did with D.E. Was take a high concept idea
and make it on a low budget. But due to some creative cinematography,
editing and post production tinkering they were able to pull it off.
The plot concerns... well it's an easy
film to spoil. So the basic premise is four friends go on a road
trip, one friend is a Jesus freak. They want to loosen that one
friend up a bit some they put some LSD in his drink... think is are
crazy Christian loses his shit are starts bumping off his buddies. Oh
and did I mention there is a “Cabin in the woods” style
corporation watching these folks via a camera that's been implanted
in the eye of one of the friends?
This is just the cusp of the plot... it's a surreal drug induced trip into madness and it's a lot of fun. I watched the film sober... but by the ending credits you feel like you took a tab of acid. The biggest problem with Independent films these days are that they lack in story. This one is packed to the brim (maybe a bit too much) with sub-plot and sub-plot but it all kind of works.
You get gore, you get some sexuality... and yes that's provided by Tiffany Shepis (SURPRISE!). But Shepis fans take note, she may be listed on the box cover but she's in the film for less then 10 minutes. But she makes an impact and gives the film that signature sexy edge it needs.
We also get some bat shit crazy kills
that I won't spoil. But the gore is very well done with some trippy
Cronenberg style body horror and a very nice severed head.
The supporting cast is where they must
of spent most of the budget. It's money well spent though. Armin
Shimerman (Yes the asshole principle from Buffy) shows up as the
“Boss Man” and nails his part. He plays the same character in
everything but he's so good at it so why change it?
Hell even Edwin Neal shows up... yes
that's right folks the Hitcher from the original Texas Chainsaw! He
hams up the screen and has a lot of fun doing it.
Also be on the look out for what I
think is a break out performance from Cassandra Powell who plays
Becky Brannigan. She's only done this film and a short but I feel
this gal has a great career a head of her.
As much as I loved Dropping Evil at
times the constant shift in style can disconnect you from the drama.
But it's not hard to tell this film was made as an experiment. It's
not an art movie and it's not going to appeal to your average horror
audiences. So your best off checking out the trailer first to see if
it's your cup of tea or not before you check it out. But this
reviewer loved it!
Also one last note Fred Williamson is
listed on the front of the DVD box. He's featured in the film for
about 1 minute of screen time. It's a fun 1 minute but even if your a
HUGE Fred The Hammer Williamson completest take that in mind. Besides
that, no complaints.
Here's hoping they make a sequel... I'd certainly pay top dollar to see one.
The DVD from the great folks at Wild
Eye releasing is nice. The DVD is NTSC region 0 so it's all region,
nice for are over-seas friends.
The 16:9 widescreen transfer looks
surprisingly colorful and lush for a low budget film. The black and
white sequences especially stand out. Contrast is amazing but bright
day light scenes can look a tad soft.
The audio isn't going to blow your
socks off but it gets the job done and is crystal clear.
Special features are kinda hit and miss. Some cool short films, deleted scenes, music videos and lastly some trailers. A commentary would have been cool since I would have loved what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with this wild film.
This flick comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if
you dig trippy mind fuck horror. Take Cabin in the woods, Eraser
Head, Videodrome and I Drink Your Blood toss it into a mixer with a
few tabs of LSD and you got yourself an inventive effective little
flick on your hands.
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