To kako

I think it's fair to say that Greece is hardly renowned for its horror movie output (to date I have only seen one other scary film from this country—Nico Mastorakis' infamous 'video nasty' Island of Death), but having just enjoyed zombie romp 'To Kako' (AKA Evil), I reckon that the Greeks should spend less time smashing plates and more time smashing skulls, 'cos they're actually pretty good at it!

Director Yorgos Noussias begins his film with the discovery of an enormous cavern on the outskirts of Athens, within which lurks an evil force that is capable of transforming people into flesh-craving zombies. After initially possessing three construction workers who investigate the cavern, the force spreads rapidly throughout the city leaving only a small group of survivors—buxom teenager Jenny, her sexy neighbour, a randy taxi driver, a soldier, and a football fan—desperately searching for a way out of their predicament.

Whilst this might not be the most imaginative of plots, Noussias's superb handling of his material more than makes up for the lack of originality in narrative: genuinely atmospheric scenes of horror are expertly combined with bloody moments of knockabout splat-stick comedy to make this a thoroughly entertaining 83 minutes of scares, OTT gore and laughs. And for a film with such a small budget, this film looks absolutely fabulous, with great cinematography (the shots of the deserted city are particularly cool), snazzy editing (the MTV stylings are a little over-done, perhaps, but it's still technically impressive stuff), and loads of amazing special effects (both traditional and digital).

The blurb on the DVD packaging describes the film as 'a rapid-fire series of over-the-top-gross-out gags and gore' but I feel that this description does not really do the film justice. Yes, 'To Kako' offers gore-hounds a smörgåsbord of splatterific effects and bad-taste humour—crushed heads, decapitations, eviscerations, and juicy impalements—but there is more to Noussias' movie than just a mindless comedy gore-fest: in addition to making viewers laugh, the director also manages to deliver carefully constructed scenes of tension and excitement, allows his viewers to care about his characters before he has them pulled apart and eaten, and presents an excellent downbeat ending that sees the last four survivors facing insurmountable odds as the undead close in for the kill, thus qualifying 'To Kako' as a bona fide horror experience.

First of all, let's make clear that from the technical viewpoint, this movie isn't even close to what we might call "a decent attempt". The acting is in general horrible, the directing (a few scenes aside) ranges from inadequate to disturbing etc. In a nutshell, there seems to be a mix of very low budget and talentless crew that add up to poor performances and visuals.

However, the story is worth noticing for the way it handles contemporary Greek capital city characters. The group of survivors trying to hold on to life is a mixture of everyday people one would definitely come across if one hanged around Athens for a day or two. That keeps the (otherwise simple) story going and serves as a comical relief Greeks can easily respond to.Furthermore, the movie's ending offers a great visual and also a very satisfying conclusion.

To sum up, this is a rather poor attempt towards a decent Greek splatter film. Even with a low budget, there is no excuse for some of the shortcomings of it. However, it really DESERVES a viewing, because 1) it will make you laugh, 2) the characters will make you feel right at home and 3) it's a Greek splatter horror film, and you won't find many of these (it's the only one I've come across so far).

"To Kako" (aka "Evil") was a film that I didn't expect much out of. A Greek zombie film seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it a noble effort despite it's flaws.

The film does come off as fairly novice. It may be cultural boundaries, but I am also picky. Certain people around here call this film "trash", but I don't think that is fair. Compared to Romero's films, EVERY zombie film COULD be considered somewhere between second rate and "trash". This film is somewhere in between, but is worth a look if you like the genre.

What I did like about the film what what they were able to do with an obviously limited budget. The acting is nothing above average but also not "horrible" as some have suggested. Given the budget, the prosthetics and other optical FX were passable. I was relieved to not see an assault of CGI animated gore. I found a couple of the effects laughable, but others to be much better.

There are come continuity flaws, and some moments where the film drags, but the story is fairly well crafted, and the the gore-hounds in the audience will be happy at the amount of splatter and nastiness. Also, some of the dialog moves rather fast, and you may find yourself having to read a bit quicker than usual. But if you can get past these few limitations, you may find this to be an enjoyable movie. I would give it a 4 or 5 normally, but since it is a cut above the majority of non-Romero zombie films, I gave it a 6. You zombie buffs see it for yourselves and decide for yourselves.

When I first heard about the making of Greek zombie film, I must admit i felt really excited but a bit weary at the same time.

Excited because this was going to be a first for my country, but a bit uncertain of what it could turn out like...I knew that the guys that made the film were working on a shoelace budget and I was worried that as proper "gore" is quite expensive to create, the whole film would be just people with ketchup on their faces walking around Athens.

From the first moment watching this film you realize that it is made by people who love this kind of genre , for people who love this genre.

Don't expect any hidden meanings when watching "evil". The film is here to entertain us and it succeeds in doing so big time!

The acting is good, the effects are surprisingly convincing, and most of all it is really funny!

Obviously the guys who made this film were inspired by Peter Jackson's "Braindead" . Trying to combine humor with horror is really difficult but they did a great job!

I heard somewhere that the guys have currently plans for a new movie. I just cant wait! And guys if you are reading this... please please please let me be in it! I'll do it for free!

So here we have zombies on the bloody rampage in Athens.They were awakened from their eternal sleep during one unfortunate event in a forgotten cave.The epidemic spreads through the bite.The zombies are running fast and killing almost everyone in their sight."To Kako" aka "Evil" plays like "28 Days Later" on steroids.Unfortunately I prefer zombies walking than running like hell.There is plenty of gore,some splattery head-shots,cannibalism,squashed heads and beheadings.There's also the standard horrible acting and amateurish scene construction with several annoying dark comedy moments.Still I'd give "To Kako" 7 out of 10 because it possesses the intensity and charm of a film helmed by a director who firmly believes in his creation.