Insight of Evil

Insight of Evil

**

DVD

Directed by

Nigel Hartwell

Written by

Nigel Hartwell

Cast

Anthony Cortese

Tiffany Edwardsen

Chris Simis

Annie Pantusa

Mike Bruce

The
Asylum, working its way toward being the Full Moon of the new
millenium, brings us a murder mystery intermingled with vengeance from
beyond the grave in Insight of Evil.

First off, I give The
Asylum some due credit for making a truly foreboding menu for Insight
of Evil. The music is very appropriate, and the distorted nature of the
footage running behind the menu options lends that extra note of terror
to the proceedings.

Even the distorted voice -overs in the background force one to wonder, just what IS it we're about to watch here?

If only the movie could have lived up to the high expectations promised in the menu.

So
what we have here is the story of a troubled high school, which pretty
much sums up the whole state of public education these days. But
Watertown High School has more troubles than the ordinary. All of
Watertown's troubles start when one of Watertown High's students, Tanya
Beach, loses her twin sister. And the girl's not dead...not that we
know of, anyway. She's disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

But
Tanya's not letting the vanished sister get in the way of high school
antics, no sir or ma'am, as the case may be. Tanya packs it up, against
her mother's wishes, to go to a party with her friends in the midst of
a lakeside cottage---

--ooooooh boy.

We all know where
this is going, don't we? High school kids having uncondoned parties
unsupervised at lakeside cottages never ends in a body count of less
than three.

This will be no exception.

This cabin is the
site of a really nasty murder scene that took place a few months prior,
and currently holds one very angry ghost.

And this ghost isn't
going to be in a mood to drink 151 Rum and shake the proverbial ghostly
booty to the newest Eminem song. No, there's going to be killing, and
lots of it.

It's truly a wonder that, by now, movie studios
haven't managed to think up any better premise for slaughtering
promiscuous and rebellious teenagers. It's always some ghost / monster
/ maniac lurking in the woods / empty lot / abandoned amusement park /
creepy roller disco looking to avenge the wrongs / slaughter the living
that remind it of a past injustice of months / weeks / one thousand
years ago.

You'll notice a lot of slashes in that last
paragraph. No coincidence, because there are also a lot of slashes in
Insight of Evil.

Never mind that the cast includes such bold
type archetypes as: "The Troubled Teen," "The Party Girl," "The Drug
Dealer," "The Player," The joke is, I'm not kidding. The characters are
introduced by brief placards of text inserted in the film.

I'm
going to admit, though, that there are a couple of good, solid shocks
built into Insight of Evil. Bloody footprints just showing up for no
apparent reason, things jumping out from behind, that sort of thing.
They're scares, and despite their ultimately trite nature, they never
really go out of style.

Strange how cheap shots never die.

The
worst part is, I can't even TELL why the movie's CALLED Insight of
Evil. If they really wanted to give us a better idea of what the movie
was about, they could have just called it "Moron Teenagers Who Never
Learn Killed By Yet Another Strange Thing."

But then, that wouldn't fit on the box very well, now would it?

The
ending is a strange moulange of events, and while it's not exactly the
best way to end things, being a bit on the confusing side, it does have
a lot of unique charm to it. There's even a mild twist ending that'll
leave you a little surprised.

At least until the music video kicks in.

Seriously,
folks--the credit roll has a music video running in the background.
What an incredibly STUPID move this was. Running a music video over the
end credits is a move that verges on pandering, and it's a slap to the
face of the audience to have to sit through this self-indulgent crap.

The
special features include a promotional trailer and teaser for Insight
of Evil, a theatrical trailer (this was apparently in theatres at one
point!) the music video again, deleted scenes, and trailers for "Red
Right Hand," "Pandora Machine," "The Fanglys," and "St. John's Wort."

All
in all, Insight of Evil is really just the same movie we've all been
watching for the last twenty or so years. Sure, it's a well-done
ripoff, but when you come right down to it, it's still just a ripoff.