Director – Chris W. Freeman (Sorority Party Massacre, Beast Mode)
Starring – Nicholas Gonzalez (The Flash, Sleepy Hollow), Sean Carrigan (Lucifer, Scrubs), and Stevie Lynn Jones (Scream: The TV Series, Nancy Drew)
Release Date – 2020
Rating – 2/5
When you binge watch as many horror movies as you can in your spare time you are sure to pick up some shitty ones. Over the month I feel like I’ve seen more duds that hits but I’ve still enjoyed checking out all the movies I could get my hands on. After watching the grindhouse inspired horror comedy Voodoo Apocalypse I decided to dive into another blind buy. When I picked up VA at my local Walmart I also snagged a copy of Mill Creek’s Evil Takes Root. The artwork had intrigued me for some time but I never did get around to picking up a copy until now. I should have waited longer…
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a paranormal investigator that returns to his hometown after the death of his old sweetheart. What he finds is that her family is cursed by an evil entity known as the batibat and her daughter is becoming possessed by the evil. **Spoiler Alert**
I was pretty excited to spin this one but it’s evident after a few minutes that this one was a boring supernatural horror film inside of eye catching artwork. The movie does succeed at building atmosphere and tension but lacks the movie to go along with it.
The acting in this one is pretty damn good. The characters are enjoyable and the cast does a great job at bring them to life. Sadly, the film struggles to progress even though the cast is trying their best to carry the scene. The story for this one is extremely vague and moves at a snails pace. The predictability of the story and the pacing makes it a struggle to finish. It’s an interesting premise but the way the film was done made it extremely difficult to finish.
Finally, if you want some gore you will be disappointed. However, the film does have a surprising amount of blood in it. The practical effects are decent but nothing we haven’t seen ebfore. Overall, Evil Takes Root was a bust. The artwork paints a colorful and hypnotic film but the movie itself is painfully dull. This is one that should be skipped.
