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"Path of Evil" DVD
Apparently, somewhere
along the line, MTI rediscovered the slasher subgenre.
That's right...that bad
old subclass of horror flicks featuring one lone killer with a bag
of tricks and a crazy frame of mind squaring off against a coterie
of good guys, most with problems of their own is back. It's alive
and well, if MTI is any indication.
Not so long ago, you
were reading about "Scarred" right here, which dealt in
a very similar context. So now, for the second time in only a month,
you're catching up on a second slasher flick straight out of MTI.
"The Path of Evil"
gives us a nice twisty line toward a murder spree in the sleepy
little town of Crystal Lake. No, Springwood. No, Haddonfield! Okay,
no...it's DEVIL'S LAKE.
Now, with a name like
"Devil's Lake," you know something's going to go wrong
around here and in a very big way. Which it of course does--lots
of people wind up dead in lots of strange and interesting ways.
And of course, "The
Path of Evil" does plenty the right way. The intro is your
standard flood of clippings and news reports, a good way to show
that something has been very wrong in Devil's Lake for a very long
time.
There's also this peach
of a sequence at eight minutes and twenty six seconds--very scary
stuff right there. If that happened to me I'd be scared out of my
mind.
Even better, for those
who are fond of the murder mystery aspect of a slasher flick, there
will be plenty of twists and turns. Plenty.
Which isn't to say there
aren't plenty of problems of "The Path of Evil." First
off, just dissecting the box gives us plenty of problems. Take a
look at that fella on the back. Big old white head. This is our
main villain.
And it is NOT the Key
Hole Killer.
That's right, folks,
the back of the box is utterly, utterly wrong. You are NOT looking
at the Key Hole Killer. The Key Hole Killer shows up for maybe four
minutes of footage about thirteen minutes in. This fella is the
Harvest Killer, and will be doing most of the killing throughout
"The Path of Evil".
Even worse, the Key Hole
Killer looks astonishingly like a low-rent Michael Myers. Look at
him! Black jumpsuit, white full-head mask complete with hair. Isn't
that just an amazing set of coincidences?
And frankly, because
of this, I had a real hard time getting into "The Path of Evil"
at all. They'd do a fantastic job of building up tension, and then
what? This Michael Myers knockoff would wander into frame, and I'd
be staring at the cheapest, cheesiest ripoff I've seen in a long,
long time.
For just over two hours,
I'd be watching this, trying to feel the tension build, and then
BAM! Here's Mikey!
Which is another key
point I should address. This probably ran a bit too long--ninety
or even a hundred minutes would've been a better runtime here, and
there were plenty of sequences that could've been shortened up a
bit to save some runtime. People chatting in a coffeeshop, for example,
or playing pool. A minute here and there would've picked up the
pacing considerably.
The ending, however,
is a gem. It's a bit sad, but it's very suspenseful, and packs some
surprising twists that'll leave you breathless.
The special features
include storyboards, trailers, Spanish subtitles, and an interview
with the special effects makeup guy, E. Larry Day.
All in all, it's back
to the eighties for us this time around, and it's a pretty solid
trip. Assuming you can get past the low-budget Michael Myers knockoff,
and you're fond of a murder mystery, then you are going to love
"The Path of Evil."
OVERALL
GRADE: 2 stars **
Path of
Evil
**
DVD
Directed by Brad Goodman
Written by Brad Goodman, Justin Ament, Ted Pfeifer
Starring Justin Ament, Ryan Deal, Carrie Finklea, Don Alder
Produced by Michael Jones
R
130 mins
The
Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his
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