Whether this is due to great swaths of time between filming I couldn’t say but it does make for an uneven film. The motivations of the characters are strongly defined by the actors one moment only to be undermined by a poor performance in another. At times coming off like a mish-mash of scenes that have very little to do with one another. Since the film was produced over a fifteen year span it does, of course, feel disjointed. With so much of the movie hinging on their effectiveness I felt these crucial scenes managed to hold the film together just enough to keep it from exploding into a confused mess. Clever angles and editing choices are woven together to put the viewer on edge and fill them with a sense of what it’s like to live a dream spun horrifically out of control. While Getty seems bored with the more “normal” scenes in the movie, which are by far it’s weakest, he was truly in his element when bringing his personal nightmares to life. There are several times in the movie where Dennis is trapped within his nightmares battling with the evil entity and in these moments I found myself enraptured by the clear passion at play. The opening sequence particularly, narrated by Koehler, while filled with some overly dramatic and trite dialogue, is the best representation of a dream I’ve seen since “The Sopranos”. This is where Andrew Getty’s genius is grandly displayed. Much of the film involves nightmares and unreality. Every awful scene seemed to be matched by one that captivated and genuinely terrified me. Despite all this the film is mesmerizing and there is true genius at work behind it’s glaring flaws. Whether this was due to a production that started and stopped several times over a decade or amateur direction and writing is up in the air. The acting from nearly everyone involved, with the notable exception of Frederick Koehler’s fantastic performance, is pretty bad. The narrative structure of the film is all over the place with muddled character motivations and scenes that go on for far too long with little to no point. Andrew Getty may well have been a creative genius, aspects of this film attest to that, but he was an untrained filmmaker and his inexperience shows. Let me start off by saying that this film is technically flawed from start to finish. When John brings home an antique mirror Dennis begins to have conversations with an entity inside of it that starts to slowly twist him into a ruthless killer. His caretaker brother John (Sean Patrick Flanery) is torn between his responsibilities to Dennis and his relationship with longtime girlfriend Lydia (Dina Meyer) who wants John to commit Dennis so that they can start a new life together. The story revolves around Dennis (Koehler), a mentally handicapped young man who has terrible nightmares that he’s convinced are being whispered to him by someone or something in his sleep. The genesis of this film is the stuff of Hollywood legend and the end product is indeed a fascinating piece of art that deserves to be seen. The main star of the film, Frederick Koehler, even recalls Getty eating cereal at dinner for weeks because he’d sunk every dime he had into the production. He built custom camera rigs, renovated his home where much of the filming took place and even built huge, custom animatronic set pieces. He meticulously worked on every aspect of the film while, at the same time, draining his considerable fortune in the effort to produce his masterwork. I'll be blown away if this thing isn't on my "worst of" list come the end of the year.For fifteen years “The Evil Within” was the all consuming obsession of oil heir Andrew Getty all the way up to his untimely death in 2015. Terrible, terrible, terrible and barely releasable. Just a lot of booing and disgruntled mumbles as we left the theatre. Do something more productive with your time and money than spend it on this pile of garbage.Hear, hear!Įxact same thing happened at my screening. Poorly shot, directed, acted, and edited this film is a piece of fucking shit. The first week of January isn't even over and this may be the worst film of 2012. The whole (sold out) audience applauses, laughs and cheers showing more participation with the film than the prior 80 minutes. The film cuts to black stating that the events of the Rossi case have been unresolved and to visit for more information. The film ends on the director of the film, now possessed, crashing the car carrying everyone head-on into another vehicle.
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