Gorehounds Unite!

Andrew Lakewood seems to be a normal average guy. He was raised by a loving family and has a close relationship with his older brother. His girlfriend adores him and his best friend could only think he know's everything about him. But deep inside of Andrew is a darkside, that has been masked over the years. Until one day, his thoughts and fantasies become real! Richard Terrasi is the Writer, Producer and Director of this pure horrific and disturbing film "Am I Evil".  The film digs deep into the mind of a serial killer.

 Am I Evil...........The title brings back memories of headbanging to Metallica in the early days when they still made good metal. I kind of had the same feeling with this film......Right away when the titles came up for this film I immediatly was brought back to the early 80's and the heyday for the classic slashers and indie direct to video nasties I used to flood my brains with during that glorious, bloody era.

 As I am sure you all remember from that period it can be a double edged sword.....sure the memories are good but you try and good back to those films you loved in the 80's and realize they were really good memories, but films?.........not so much!

 So does this film deliver on both fronts or is it just another indie film trying to take advantage of the resurgence of the 80's horror/slasher nostalgia? Read on and find out for yourself!

 I'd have to say the answer to that depends on the person viewing it. For me it started out as a by the books slasher type of film......but midway through became not only a nod to the films we loved back then but also a dark and disturbing profile of the descent into a serial killers deeply disturbed mind.

 The film really starts off slow and I urge anyone who views this film to hang through it as you will miss one of the most thrilling films in recent memory if you do yourself the disservice of turning it off.

 The acting is spotty as can be expected in this type f film but one performance really stands out....Mark Vazquez as the main protagonist of the film. Somehow he brings a very likeable quality to the character which makes his actions seem all that more violent....not to mention he seems to really fit that "Nice Guy Next Door" quality's we all hear about real serial killers having.

 The woman as well do a decent job but most are of the T&A stripper variety we see in alot of the low budget horror stuff out there now......the one exception to that is the girlfriend. She gives a performance thats both strong yet she still has an innocence to her character that makes her instantly likeable.

 The biggest thing that stood out to me was the quality of the Special Effects.......These guys did an AMAZING job as almost all the gags they pulled of  worked and had a hollywood quality to them. These guys will definitly be a force to be reckoned with in the near future!

  I do want to mention however that with how good these effects were it was a shame to see a few of them ruined by lighting issues.  A few off the corpses were given a very Halloween haunted house quality because there was too much light on them....And the same goes for the blood. In some scenes it looked amazing and in others it looked either too thick or had too much chocalte sauce mixed in. All these issues I am sure were either budgetary in nature or part of the learning process. Altogether though these effects were amazing and brought the production value of the whole film into big budget range (an incredible achievement in the low budget indie film market and a testament to the skills of the make-up people).

 This brings me to the one other glaring problem I had with the film......The pacing. There were scenes that just dragged on forever at the beginning of the film that didnt even really serve to drive the story forward. It starts out slow as it is so theres a slight problem there.....But as I said before this being a low budget film thats somewhat to be expected.  The final 45 min- hour were perfectly paced and exciting to watch as was the camera work.

 Had there not been the pacing issue (which can still be fixed) this would have no doubt in my mind been a 5 out of 5. As it stands though I can still see this film getting a noteriety and a hardcore cult following as the amount of talent involved in this film is amazing and the filmmakers pull no punches in delivering a gory and entertaining film that all true horror will simply drool over!

 I can assure everyone that once this film gets picked up by a distributer (and I would bet any money that will be soon) that the distributer is gonna make money hand over fist. The hype for this film is gonna spread like wildfire as soon as word of mouth hits the horror community and everyone from Fango to Rue Morgue will be singing the praises of this little indie gem!  Either way Mad Monk has a huge future and I can't wait to see what their sick and twisted minds bring us next!

 The only film I can even compare this to is "Henry: Portrait Of a Serial Killer" and I may be going out on a limb here but this film will be uttered in the same breath as that horror classic. This is a film that takes all of the Freddys, Jasons, and Leatherfaces of the horror world and shows them the real meaning of true terror!

Come visit the website at: www.amievilmovie.com

Or the official myspace page at: http://www.myspace.com/richardterrasi

RATING:

4 out of 5 Severed Heads