Evangeline is written and directed by Karen Lam with cinematographer Michael Balfry (“The Dead Zone,” “The Haunting Hour”) and producer Jeanne Slater. Cast members include Kat de Lieva, Richard Harmon (“Bates Motel,” “Continuum”), Mayumi Yoshida, David Lewis (“Harper’s Island,” “The L Word”), Kelvin Redvers, John Shaw, Nelson Leis, Dejan Loyola (“Once Upon A Time in Wonderland,” “The Troop”), Madison Smith, Anthony Shim and Natalie Grace.
“A naïve university student, Evangeline, is brutalized by a gang of thrill seeking killers. Left to die in the forest, she is ‘saved’ by an ancient demon spirit. The spirit empowers her with a blood-lust for vengeance. Evangeline must make a choice, is she willing to sacrifice her own soul?” – IMDB
I’m going to start this review off by being very honest. Evangeline, to me, was nothing of great interest. Recently another title from Uncork’d Entertainment, Avenged, received its home media release and it was a much stronger story which deals with the rape-revenge subgenre of horror. I think the problem here is that Ms. Lam tried to do way too much with the story at once. The need for me to see revenge unfold on screen was overpowered by being bored during long moments of talking and the desire to figure out what was going on. Sometimes less is more, especially when you have a story that has two intersecting killers ganging up on one demonic possessed, bad ass little girl.
Speaking of the demon, I wish I was able to see more of it, but alas it’s kind of a far secondary character that you don’t see in full. Instead, most of its actions and thoughts are developed through Evangeline who, I’m sorry, couldn’t look any less intimidating than she did. Although she is a great actress, the ball was dropped in a major way when it came to casting an actress who viewers were supposed to be partially afraid of. That is a problem in any film – having way too many villains and not one of them being very interesting. I think this could have been remedied by getting rid of one of the fraternity leader’s minions and focusing less on Evangeline’s backstory. That way more time could have been given to all of the important characters in hopes of enriching the overall story.
This doesn’t mean that Evangeline is a bad movie by any means. It won several awards in the film festival circuit and managed to nab a distribution deal; it just wasn’t for me in any capacity. Still, it’s production value is high and I’m surprised the production was able to reel in the number of recognizable television talent that it did. Their notoriety and expert performances were really the only highlight of the movie for me. Although, I thoroughly enjoyed Evageline’s (Kat) dynamic with Mayumi Yoshida (Shannon). I wish that relationship was focused on more, too. A title with an above average quality for its budget and good actors doesn’t make for a great movie; just like a title with a complex, reaching storyline and lackluster killers don’t necessarily make for a horrible movie.
Evangeline falls dead in the middle of the ratings scale. FINAL SCORE: 5 out of 10
I saw and reviewed this one too. There were too many ideas thrown into this one and they were, mostly, underdeveloped.