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DVD Review
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| Director |
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Christian Viel
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| Cast |
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Bobbie Phillips
Howard Rosenstein
Brandi-Ann Milbradt
Ginger Lynn Allen
Chasey Lain
Jenna Jameson
Gillian Leigh
Phil Price
Simon Peacock
Richard Grieco
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| Distributor |
Lions Gate Home Entertainment
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| DVD Origin |
| United States |
| DVD Release Date |
| 10th January 2006 |
| Running Time |
| 78 Minutes |
| Number of Disks |
| 1 |
| Certification |
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R
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Reviewed By
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Ryan McDonald
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Buy this film
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EVIL BREED: THE LEGEND OF SAMHAIN (2003)
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American students in Ireland with their hot teacher (Philips) stay in a remote house with a nasty cannibal picking them off one by one. Milbradt (in her debut role) is the resident virgin goody two-shoes, and you know what that means. Veteran porn star Ginger Lynn Allen, with an inconsistent Irish accent and Simon Peacock, with a much more convincing one, are the locals who spout the usual warnings of Beware! Keep Out! Turn Around! Trouble be ahead with great big pointy teet…er…you get the idea. Porn actresses Chasey Lain and Jenna Jameson have mere cameo roles, as does former 21 Jump Street hunk Grieco (who apparently hasn’t cut his hair since the eighties) as an early victim.
I quite enjoyed Christian Viel’s low-budget action flick Recon 2020 (also staring Gillian Leigh), and again here he shows that he knows how to direct and shoot very attractive, if cheap films. Unfortunately, this plagued production (the director has all-but disowned this much-altered version) has severe script and casting problems. On the casting front, the trio of porn actresses actually give the film’s best performances, which should tell you what to expect of the rest. The one exception is the creepy Peacock, who sounds authentic and manages to be pretty decent in the kind of role I thought should’ve gone out with the Friday the 13th series. Leigh, who was perky but miscast in Recon 2020, has nothing much to do here, and the rest of the students look way too old for their roles, especially when their teacher (Philips) looks about three years older than them. And Price is unbelievably obnoxious as the resident obnoxious jokester, who is so old-looking, he makes Gabrielle Carteris and Luke Perry from 90210 look like tiny tots!
Which brings me to the script problems. You see, Price’s character typifies a lot of what is wrong with this film. He’s got the Jamie Kennedy role from Scream. Literally. I mean, there’s a scene where the gang are watching a horror film on TV and Price recites some of Kennedy’s 'Horror Movie Rules’ dialogue verbatim. It’s a shockingly plagiaristic scene, that Viel has distanced himself from ever since (claiming someone else wrote that scene). And Price is bad enough to make you yearn for the irritating loser prankster Shelley from Friday the 13th 3-D! But all of these characters are unoriginal- the bookworm with no friends (ala Carrie), the repressed (but hot) teacher, the prankster, the jock, the crazy coot issuing dire warnings, the hitch-hiker looking for her lost (and presumably dead) companion (a role taken by Ms. Jameson). The only negligible stereotype missing is the shuffling, cowardly African-American. Needless to say, you won’t care about these people one iota, and most of the performances are flat at best (as for Ginger Lynn, does she even know where Ireland is?). And if you do watch the film, ask yourself if that inbreeding subplot sounded familiar…It should, it’s stolen from Peter Benchley’s The Island, which was made into a shocking misfire with Michael Caine. Not to mention the fact that this film was apparently inspired by the same incident as Wes Craven’s classic The Hills Have Eyes. Not that I personally saw much resemblance.
It’s not all bad, however (and not nearly bad enough to rate the film poorly). The gore is pretty fantastic, for those inclined. There’s a stabbing to the mouth, and Jenna Jameson has her plastic booby ripped out, in what must be one of the all-time great Scream Queen moments (more on that later). The film looks superb for something clearly costing very little money, with some very lovely scenery (Canada, doing an Oscar-worthy job in the role of Ireland) that would make a great setting for a much better film than this. Viel shows in the finale that he’s actually a very good director, as the film finally hits its stride with a gory and fast-paced climax (I counted three deaths in 5 minutes at least!) that slightly resembled Wrong Turn or the Masters of Horror episode Incident on and off a Mountain Road. Only here do we get to the exploitation goodies, especially the gore. Unfortunately, the film wastes ample opportunity to include copious amounts of nudity and sex, an unforgivable sin when you have three (count ‘em, three!) porn stars in the cast!
Look, Viel sure knows about composition, lighting and atmosphere (elements that I love in a horror film), but that can only carry your film so far, if the characters and story are of no interest, you’re going to be treading water, even if your director is Alfred Hitchcock and your DP is Haskell Wexler! Next time Mr. Viel, I implore you to have a better script in hand, and please, for the love of God, more emphasis on the non-violent exploitation elements. But perhaps Viel truly was at the mercy of some nasty studio people who messed around with his film (as has been widely reported). I’d certainly prefer to believe that.
And that brings me to the extra content on this DVD, which actually proves better than the film itself (and almost making the film worth seeing, certainly enough to bump the score up a bit). We have two deleted scenes, with seriously large amounts of gore. The first scene is called the uncut ‘Internal Strangle Scene’, wherein a guy is strangled by his own intestines. It’s absolutely disgusting, but truly, truly hilarious. Next up is the Uncut version of the ‘Silicon Feast Scene’ involving Jameson. It’s equally disgusting and equally funny, and both should’ve stayed in the film uncut- they’re the best scenes in the damn movie! Sure, they go a little too far with the gore, even for me, but why would you cut the only two good scenes in your damn movie? The DVD also comes with trailers for Saw 2 (better than the original if you ask me), Tamara, and Green River Killer.
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Score
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5 / 10
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