Most movies about serial killers are so watered down that they could be played on a woman’s romance channel. All of them ignore the fact that serial killers are sexual predators. That behavior is completely omitted from the movies.
Some movies show a little bit of gore, but not enough to paint the picture, even when the killer is the type who wants to horrify those who discover the bodies.
Why do movie-makers leave these things out? If you read books about the killers, every detail is vividly described. Why are you forbidden from seeing such things in movie?
Perhaps it is a remnant of Hollywood self-censoring so that religious imbeciles are appeased. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Victorian Age when man was exalted to ridiculously unrealistic levels. No one can live up to an ideal, so bizarre expectations lead to misery.
There is unfounded worry that seeing rape will turn you into a rapist, or that if you watch porn then you will be less likely to vote guilty in a rape trial. Beyond that, it is considered low-grade to show things as they really are. Again, details of the behavior of serial killers is described in books. Why not in movies?
Most movies about serial killers are basically just soap operas. The dialogue is completely fiction, as is the behavior, so much so that the character names in movies should be changed. It’s deceptive to name a movie after a serial killer when almost nothing in the story is true.
The day may never come when a movie satisfies the type of person who enjoys reading true-crime books and studies in criminology. many Americans are sexually repressed, sexually ignorant, and squeamish. The ones who aren’t don’t comprise a large enough audience for a movie to rise above the low standards.
Evilenko is not an exception to anything I have stated, but it has Malcolm McDowell.
In one of the many bonus items of the new 4K transfer on Unearthed Films, Malcolm stated that he did not want to depict someone who is real. He wanted to use his skills to make a character.
If you are familiar with Malcolm, then you will agree that he gave an impressive performance. He truly became someone else.
It was interesting to see the bland life in a communist country, but it was ruined by the British accents. This isn’t England. It made me recall how much I despised a cable show about Catherine. Everyone spoke in English accents, and some Russians were played by Africans. My point is that, if a there is some effort to bring authenticity, like wood carvings that are common in Slavic countries, why ruin that with a completely different ethnicity, whether it’s Celtic of African? That is understandable in a high school play, but not in a period piece.
Another annoyance was modern slang. Russians do not have the same stupid sayings as Americans. This kept shattering the illusion that I was watching something take place in Russia, even with the backdrop.
The dialogue was lazy in many places. I never want to be smarter than the movie. I can’t count the number of times I finished sentences in my head that the characters spoke word-for-word. Some situations were also as easily predictable.
It seems that this is a bad review, but despite the flaws of the movie, I enjoyed Malcolm’s performance, and some of the bland aspects of life in a communist setting were effective. If you converse with someone from another country, you might discover drastic differences in life. Someone from a small village in Ukraine might be shocked that half an aisle in a supermarket is composed of many different brands of coffee, for example. You might have an entire room in your house specifically for your trove of DVDs and posters covering most wall space, whereas someone in another country might only have the bare essentials.
Watch the movie for Malcolm, but if you want to discover the deeds of the serial killer, he described his rapes, tortures, and killings in court. If you read those transcripts, you will discover everything that this movie left out.