Evil Angel

source: Evil Angel

Evil Angel starts as paramedics Marcus (Kristopher Shepard) & his partner Jenny (Marie Westbrook) are called to a flat to help give birth to a baby, meanwhile across the street a man commits suicide. Later that night the paramedics are called to attend to a young woman named Emma (Rachel Emmers) who has been badly stabbed, Marcus falls in love with her but is unable to save her life & she dies in hospital soon after. Just as Emma dies a comatose patient named Caroline (JJ Neward) suddenly wakes up & after killing two people walks out of the hospital & disappears into the night. All these seemingly unconnected events have one common factor, an ancient body hopping demon named Lilith who can possess bodies that are close to death. A murdered private investigator & a long trail of dead bodies lead back to Carla (Ava Gaudet), the wife of paramedic Marcus who is now possessed by the evil Lilith... Edited, written, produced & directed by Richard Dutcher this didn't turn out to be as bad as I was expecting but at the same time was hardly any sort of masterpiece, Evil Angel is certainly better than a lot of low budget horror crap out there but that's not a particularly strong recommendation in itself. The one thing that stands out about Evil Angel is that it tries to be a lot deeper than most low budget horror, at a little under two hours long it also requires patience to sit through. The first hour or so has all these different story threads playing out, the body hopping demon, the private detective, Carla's suicide attempts, Marcus & Carla's unhappy marriage, Marcus & his job & his belief's as well as various background on the individual victims that I assume was meant to flesh the character's out & make us care. This is successful to a certain extent but the film becomes a bit of a muddled mess & gets lost on occasions as it tries to juggle all these aspects without giving the viewer one strong central plot to get involved with & follow. The script for Evil Angel just feels a little mixed up like it wasn't sure what sort of tone it was going for, some of the story remains unexplained like what was in the needle Carla had at the end? Why was it so important to her? Why did this Lilith demon want to take revenge on the people who wronged the women she possessed? Why would Lilith care? How come that guy at the start kept seeing demon faces everywhere? At the two hour mark Evil Angel does drag at times but it does have it's moments & it's a better fleshed out film than I expected even if it gets a bit lost at times. Evil Angel looks great with nice visuals from veteran director of photography Bill Butler who was also responsible for photographing the likes of Jaws (1975), Damien: Omen II (1978), Grease (1978), Rocky II (1979), Child's Play (1988) & Anaconda (1997) to name but a few. There's a few gory moments but they are quite far between, there's a decapitation, a slit throat, various stabbings & shootings, a cut out heart & some blood splatter as well as an over the top moment in which someone is gorily killed by being hit by a car. There's some nudity as well, in fact the opening credits make Evil Angels look like your watching a soft-core * film. The CGI computer effects aren't that bad actually which is surprising. I don't know what sort of budget Evil Angel had but I'm guessing tat while not exactly big it did have some money spent on it & it show's with slick production values. The recognisable Ving Rhames has a supporting role as a tough private detective & is alright, the rest of the cast try but the material is silly at times. Evil Angel was a pleasant surprise in that it wasn't absolutely terrible but at the same time please don't take that as any sort of great recommendation as it's still not what I would call great, you could do worse for sure but you could do better as well. Worth watching, just about anyway.

This movie is 2h and 10 minutes long and it drags to tell a simple story of possession and jumping from one body to the next. No its not a bad movie but its way to long for its own good and its been done a million times but a lot better then this one.

Personally, I like to go into a movie known that it is worth my time, but yet being surprised by the details, suspending my disbelief and traveling into the world of the story brought to life by the "magic of cinema". However, for Evil Angel, I watched it at least twice, and the first time was as part of a series of rare films hardly known to the U.S. domestic market (to this day, this movie seems to only be available second hand, although rumors of EU DVDs exist). One reason for its rarity might be the name: it is easily confused with "Evil Angel Productions", an adult film company which it has no connection with whatsoever. The fact that the first few minutes feature a woman dancing and taking of her clothes on a bed is one of the reasons why I say, "easily confused", however. Now, finding out what the plot is all about is most of the fun in this movie. The basic plot device is simple, and the twists are not too surprising when described, but when you watch the movie, time will sort of melt away as you enjoy seeing the story unfold.... The characters are interesting and they are plenty of "shout at the screen" moments where you can build up emotions and hopes that things will turn out one way or the next. The pacing is neither too slow nor too fast, and they are some surprisingly action scenes to keep you stimulated. Having said that, this movie is really made for a more mature audience who wants something light to watch. It is not made for hardcore supernatural fans, hardcore horror fans, or the person who needs to have their attention grabbed every few seconds (e.g. Transformers 2 fans). Rather, it is made for people who normally like to live in reality but occasionally like to step out into the unusual. Given all of that, I gave the film an A rating overall, 8/10. There's nothing too deep or remarkable to set it apart, but it is worth watching, and although it shares a lot of flaws common to movies, I can appreciate the time I spent with it. It is free from major plot flaws, although I am sure nitpickers can find some, and is a way to spend two hours outside of dealing with the real world. ... just don't mistake the unconnected adult production company for this rare movie ;)

It was what it was. It intended to be a fun addition to the horror movie genre, and it was. Technical quality was great. FX were fine without being absurdly over the top. Ving Rhames was classy to watch. Half the cast from "States of Grace" appeared in it. And if you like naked babes, you'll have a feast in this movie. What it was not, which I did expect it to be, was an involved exploration of the "Lilith" legend. The old Jewish legend of a wife for Adam previous to Eve was just a device exploited to justify all the murder and mayhem. In a sense that disappointed me, but in another sense, I'm glad. I was irked that he beat me to the punch of using the Lilith legend in a movie. But since he never explored it in depth, that still leaves open the possibility of someone else doing it. You have to keep on your toes in the first 15 minutes to sort out all the characters being introduced, but things finally gel, and the ride begins. The real spice of the film comes when Dutcher himself enters the movie playing an eccentric character. Probably my biggest beef with the film is Rachel Emmers died early, and she never had a * scene. If you're a fan of horror movies, this is an enjoyable addition to the repertoire. If you're not, it's a horror film classy enough to watch anyway. I personally am not into horror movies generally, but I do like a good one, and few seem to be good. "Evil Angel" does nothing to be a break-out film, but it does qualify among the upper tier of quality horror films.

I had no idea what to expect from this film. The opening credits consisted of a woman writhing around naked. As the credits came up on screen one of them stated "You're not even reading this". This is something that wouldn't be out of place in a spoof. It was a nice chuckle, but gave a false idea of what to expect. The film succeeds in actually trying to squeeze out some drama and internal conflicts between it's protagonists. On top of that you have a demon possession, mass murder plot going down. It's all fairly entertaining, if predictable. The cast are solid, but not always convincing. All I can say for sure, is that I quite liked it.

I was expecting more from the movie, as it looked so promising. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a bad movie. Quite the contrary. The movie is quite good, and got some nice effects. The movie suffered from a lack of thrills or scares. There were some fairly cool-looking scenes, but there were no building up to scares. You could pretty much see everything coming a mile away. And the ending? Well, it was amazingly predictable. But still, the movie was not a waste of time. It has a good story, that keeps going at a good pace. You are never bored throughout the movie. And there are some really nice gory scenes and effects as well. For me, what really made it worth it was Ving Rhames, as usual he did a good job. If you got nothing better to do for an evening and want to watch a fairly straight forward "by the Hollywood book" horror movie, sit down and watch "Evil Angel".

I was lucky enough to hit the first screening in Salt Lake City last night. Richard and many of the cast and crew were in the audience. Richard did an introduction and a short Q&A after the flick. He asked for real feedback. Here's what I basically said on the form... There were a few segments of the film that seemed to drag a little bit. There were also a few awkward lines mostly spoken by folks in the film that weren't the main actors. However, In my opinion, this is a very solid horror flick. The main characters did a great job. There was some well-timed humor. There were also some decent death scenes. Not the greatest film that I've ever seen... but not even close to the worst movie I've seen (this week). Definitely worth checking out.

If you are a fan of Ving Rhames, you cannot go wrong with this I guess. But if you are not so much, he won't convince you with this movie, that he is an actor to be looking out for. And while the movie looks good (nice cinematography and set design, considering the small budget this must have had), it never really takes off. So while not entirely a bad movie, it depends on how many movies you are watching on a regular basis, to really justify you watching this. Most people won't bother from the get go (apart from the aforementioned Rhames fans) and the rest might be more than disappointed when watching this. Still nice turns (for a small independent movie) and executed well enough, not to be a complete waste (of time)

I decided to watch the movie since I had read that it did so well at some film festivals. Since I'm not a big fan of horror movies, I thought it was going to be the same old routine: bad guy kills people, people make mistakes trying to escape and more people are killed, people decide to rise up and take out the killer or at the very least, vanquish the killer. Luckily, Evil Angel did not follow that same tired cliché and in fact, watching whom I consider one of the main characters and stars of the movie (Carruthers played convincingly by Ving Rhames) take a sword through the torso by a cute little number Carla was a shocking site to behold. It's surprising moments like the aforementioned Carruthers taking it with a sword or the total transformations such as cutesy, honorable super duper best friend Jenny (Marie Westbrook) into a sultry and possessed girl or Carla (Ava Gaudet) magically convert from a suicidal, not so sane person into a beautiful killer that I would wholeheartedly defend in court as too beautiful to be guilty, that make the movie so worthwhile. While I didn't quite understand the motivation behind the movie introduction, the rest of the movie more than atoned for it's introductory sins.