Evilution (2008) — Triskaidekafiles

EVILUTION

WRITER: Brian Patrick O’Toole

DIRECTOR: Chris Conlee

STARRING: Eric Peter-Kaiser as Darren Hall
Tim Colceri as Sgt. Gabriel Collins
Sandra Ramirez as Madeline "Maddie' Gilbert
Noel G as Random
Guillermo Diaz as Killah-B
James Duval as Asia Mark
Billy Morrison as Junkie
Nathan Bexton as The Managaer

QUICK CUT: A man fresh out of the army and home from Iraq, moves into a wacky building filled with quirky characters.

THE MORGUE

Darren Hall - A doctor, a soldier, a man on the run. He wants to make a better world, but he has a pinch of that ol’ Herbert West in him, and is a bit hubristic in charging ahead. He’s a good guy, with a bit too much focus on his work at times.

Sgt. Collins - The soldier charged with finding Hall and taking care of any apocalypses he might have started along the way. A hard man, takes no shit, loves to shout.

Maddie - The neighbour upstairs, who has taken a break from life, is hiding from her responsibilities, and knows the way to tame the local gang members.

The Manager - A strange, but friendly, man who runs the Necropolitan. He has secrets, and he’s not giving answers. He is observant, astute, and runs a tight ship.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We continue through April with one more weird, offbeat movie that may not fit entirely with Trisk, but it's not entirely off base. And I have my reasons. Ones that I will get to in the fullness of time, but for now, this week's look is a little known flick from the late 2000s called Evilution. Sadly, not the movie with David Duchovny.

The movie opens on a secret military base in Iraq, and a scientist being chased by zombified soldiers.

It's not long before they catch him and eat him though, and we move outside, where a couple of soldiers are guarding the entry point, just in time for another soldier to try and drive off.

The soldiers discover Captain Hall is trying to smuggle out a vial of orange glowstick fluid, and are about to open fire, when the zombie-esque soldiers pounce. It gives Hall enough of a window to drive away, as the site is bombed from orbit.

I'll say this, a zombie slaughter and then wiping the location off the map in the first five minutes? Solid way to start a movie.

We cut to some time later, with Darren, using the name Tyler to hide his identity, arrives at the ominously, and awesomely, named Necropolitan.

He is greeted by the Manager, and shown around the place. He’s then led down into his basement apartment. The elevator is broken, the place reeks of chlorine, half the lights are out, the washing machine doesn't work...the rent at this place better be dirt cheap.

The Manager is as mysterious as the building, as he says no one knows how old the building is, some say it just appeared, but ha ha, that's not possible.

We spend some time settling in, metting the locals, including a trio of wanna be gang bangers called Random, Killah-B, and Asia Mark. Great, an entire pirate band with jolly pirate nicknames. They act tough, but another tenant, Maddie McLoveInterest comes by and puts them in their place.

Maddie invites Darren to dinner after he's done unpacking, and while they get a nice meal, we cut to another army base that is TOTALLY not the same one in a different colour grade, because it says New Mexico.

We're introduced to Sgt. Collins, as he is shown footage from the outbreak at the Iraq base, leading up to the bombing strike. Eventually, the doctor in charge of the project, the real Tyler, comes into the video, and talks a bit about the infected. He says they're learning, rebuilding themselves, and soon it will be hard to tell if they're us or we're them. And we are all together. Goo goo gajoob.

This all culminates with Collins being filled in that they know Hall escaped, and he's back on the grid, and the army is sending Collins in to assess the situation and find out what the AWOL soldier's goals are.

After his dinner date, Darren heads back to his hole, and hears the wannabe gangbangers outside his window. He realises they broke into...well, they walked in since this movie has well established Hall can't lock doors for shit, but anyways, they stole his gun, and uniform.

They have a tense moment, and eventually the trio give back the uniform. But, they play dumb about the gun, and Hall takes the win.

The next day, Darren is coming home with some groceries, and he sees Collins talking to the Manager. He hides behind a low brick wall, and runs into the local junkie.

Once the coast is clear, he heads inside, and Random stumbles in with a wound in his chest. Darren offers to help, since he's a doctor and can patch him up, and they hurry to the basement.

Collins meanwhile calls his superior officer, to give him an update. The Manager didn't give him up, but Collins knows better. The colonel is getting impatient, and wants this taken care of now, or things might get explodey again.

CAP: I am **CALM** and I am **TRANQUIL**

Once Random is all patched up, and the two have a bonding moment that gets the doc on the gang leader's nice side, Hall gets to work on the hazardous material he smuggled out of Iraq.

He injects some mice he shares his apartment with, and does some general science stuff. Fortunately, nowhere near as much sciencing as Vile 21.

Over dinner, Darren hears some gunshots, and a once again injured Random lands on the ground outside his window.

Now that we have successfully cracked the code of Ecto-Cooler, we must now turn our resources to reverse engineering Lavaburst Orange.

Much like Vile 21's Doctor Hall...HEY WAIT A SECOND...what a coincidence... Uh, but I digress.

Darren gets the seriously injured Random down to his apartment lab once again, and to make sure all that work he did earlier doesn't go to waste, he injects the guy with the orange julius.

Gotta love instant human test subjects literally landing on your doorstep. At least he’s not some random bum.

It's a tense few moments where Random hovers between life and death, but then he sits up, convulses a lot and...still kinda hovers between life and death. This is gonna be touch and go for awhile.

Spitting up black sludge, that’s a good sign, right?

The doc heads to Maddie's apartment to borrow some water, and while he's gone, the door is left unlocked AGAIN and the junkie walks in and raids the place. And he is drawn straight to the glowy ooze.

As Random fights for his life, the junkie shoots up and becomes patient zeroin. The other two gang members decide to take care of the doc, not happy he's now living in their crash pad. Oh, and Darren is busy having sex with Maddie.

Darren tells Maddie about Random being shot, and she hurries down to check on him, and get him proper medical care. Unfortunately, his partners in crime have already run off with him. She instead discovers the doc's lab equipment and thinks the worst. And somehow, still falls short of the truth.

After she storms out, Darren discovers his vial is missing, and as he's about to leave, Collins is at the door.

Collins sees the sample isn't around, and the two soldiers sit and chat, and we learn the orange glowstick water is an alien sample from somewhere. It contains an alien consciousness, and the "zombies" are it's primordial form trying to figure shit out and rapidly evolve. At least, that's my take.

I’m still going to call it’s hive zombies, for sake of convenience.

Asia Mark and *sigh* Killah B barge in, wanting help for Random, and we have a standoff. Eventually, guns get lowered, and the four agree to work together to get through the building to get to Random and do what they can. The movie spends a lot of time running up and down the stairs.

Oh yeah, did I mention the zombie alien apocalypse is popping off?

Meanwhile, Random has been wandering around, runs into Maddie and she tries to help him. She gets bitten for her trouble and runs into her apartment.

The guys make their way to Maddie's apartment looking for Random, but she's not in the mood to talk to Darren. But she points them in the direction of the stairs, while lying about her obviously injured hand.

So they next head to the roof, and find Random. Darren tries to communicate with him, he thinks the zombies are evolving, and they're only reacting to their initial harsh treatment by the US government. But, Collins is having none of that, and shoots Random in the face.

Now they head back DOWN from the roof, and encounter the zombie hordes wandering the stairwells. Along the way, Asia Mark gets jumped and dragged away to his doom.

Come on, you’re just gonna be hungry again in a few hours.

In all the commotion, Collins uses a special cocktail to take one of the zombies out, which he reveals was intended to be used on Darren, if he had gone native. He tells the crew that a mixture of chlorine and ammonia can kill the creatures. You know, just like most things.

Killah-B wants to find Mark, and Collins goes with him, leaving Darren to go to the basemment, to get his hands on Chekov's chlorine.

So those two hole up in the apartment and craft some weapons to get through the horde, and they basically get some bottles they shake up and spray the zombies with. It's a good idea, and I get it, but it looks more like a fizzle.

Meanwhile, Darren goes to the Manager to try and get him to lock down the building, saying a city worker needs it done. And I love the Manager seeing instantly through that lie, and TOTALLY buys the truth about an alien virus turning people into zombies.

The good news is, it is building policy to lock it down at night, and no one gets in or out. But as the Manager points out, if the aliens are determined to escape, then they will, unless they can wipe them out all at once.

You can probably see that there is a larger story going on behind the scenes, with the building, with the Manager, and this other plot happened to stumble into it. It's a shame this movie never really gives any satisfying answers about the locale.

So, the living get their chemicals, and make their weapons, which is, I shit you not, just filling up condoms with the chemicals. They will use those to get through the horde, get to the roof, and use the central air to spread the gas and kill everyone.

Along the way, Killah-B gets killah-D and then Darren stops by Maddie's to see if she's alive. So those three finish the run to the roof, so we can end this thing.

They get the AC unit working, dump the liquids down the system, and we watch as the entire building is filled with fog. Maddie also watches with much interest, since she's become one with the hive mind.

Maddie kills Collins, recognising him from past attacks, then she tries to convince Darren to let her go. But he does not, he tries to convince her of the worth of our individuality, and when that fails, he grabs her and jumps off the side of the building with her.

“Did they learn to fly before hitting the ground?" "Does bouncing count?"

Unfortunately, where their brains went splat was right next to a storm drain that will take Maddie's infected blood out to sea. I’m not sure if the implication is ‘infect the world’s water supply’ or ‘it will become too diluted to be a problem’ but the threat as far as this movie is concerned, is over.

The movie wraps up with the Manager, somehow still alive, taking the vial of alien goo to a collection of trophy cases, and locking it away for a later date.

Again, fascinating hints at this building, the Manager, and now this, but it's like this whole other story I want to see.

These are my Pokemons, let me show you them.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks pretty good, for what it is. The images are a bit soft and blurry at times, but nothing terrible.

Audio: Good enough, above average

Sound Bite: “Now, can the dead operate a key, Mister Tyler?"

Body Count: Woo, lotsa bodies this week. It feels like it’s been awhile since we had some good carnage.

1 - 90 seconds in, and a scientist gets eaten by some zombie soldiers
2 - Another soldier is eaten shortly after
3 - And a third
4 - The whole site gets nuked from orbit
5 - Random arguably dies
6 - As does the druggie
7 - Zombie addict eats a dude
8 - Old woman gets eaten
9 - The old woman zombie eats a tenant
10 - Another tenant gets eaten
11 - And another
12 - Zombie Random dies again, this time for real
13 - Colonel kills a zombie
14 - Asian Mark gets eaten
15 - The colonel snaps a zombie's neck
16 - The last of the gang bangers gets eaten
17 - Tyler takes out a zombie
18 - A whole building of dead alien zombies
19 - Maddy snaps the neck of the colonel
20 - Darren goes over the edge of the building
21 - ...taking Maddie with him and they both go splat

Best Corpse: There’s this one guy who gets dragged off and goes SPLAT in a bloody spray against the wall. I quite liked that one.

Blood Type - B+: There was so much blood here, spraying all over the walls, and it was a delight to see. The zombie makeup was solid, if not terribly remarkable.

Sex Appeal: There’s one girl who just got out of the shower who drops her towel when the zombies come for her, getting in some gratuitous required boobs.

Drink Up! Every time someone tells Darren to lock his door.

Movie Review: There is a lot I like here. It’s a more unique story than it seems on its face, the acting is solid, if made up of a bit of unknowns, it has a lot of energy to it, even if a lot of that is just running up and down the stairs. I love the setting, I love the unsettling notion that this other plot ended up happening at this strange location, like it was drawn there. But as I said, I want to know more! Which isn’t a bad thing, but makes the narrative feel unfinished. But it’s a solid story, that’s engaging, filled with likable and quirky characters, and a lot of blood sprayed about. It’s one of those movies that is really ambitious and doesn’t quite hit the mark, but I love the vibes and concepts, even if the final project I’m not entirely in love with. Three out of five vials of alien zombie juice.

Entertainment Value: The quirkiness carries this movie. I am fascinated by the Manager. The antics of the gang trio are fun, bordering on annoying. I love the sergeant being so bombastic he yells half his lines. The movie never takes itself entirely seriously, and it’s the better for it. The blood is a delight, and the movie never slows down. It could be better, but it’s a fun time. Four out of five chlorine filled condoms.