Our Evil

Rather slow-paced, the movie takes its time developing its (very few) characters before an equally slow, but quite apotheotic, final.

Our evil is a very low budget movie that could be described as Drama, with some horrific moments/flavor. Depending on your taste, this will be exactly what you are looking for or you will dismiss it from the outright. If the latter, it's not a bad thing, on the opposite you will save yourself quite some time and nerves.

So if you stay and do like to watch a movie that is slow paced, that you could also put into the Horror genre, that does not shy away from showing violence but also has some sequences that feel unreal (as in dream like and yes intended). So it is grounded in reality in parts but feels also supernatural in others. For the latter it has been compared with a classic which I think is a bit unfair. While you could say there are elements of it in this movie, the comparison is not the right way to go. And I'm not mentioning the classic movie because I also think it's a bit of a spoiler to do so. So watch and take it in, as the slow painful ride goes on ...

Brazilian horror Our Evil was repeatedly recommended to me by someone on TikTok; when someone is THAT insistent that a film is worth my time, I have to give it a go - and they were absolutely right: Our Evil delivers tension, scenes of extreme brutality, some genuine pathos, and expertly crafted scares, with one scene in particular delivering a one-two punch that had me jumping out of my seat.

Ademir Esteves plays Arthur, who, in the film's opening, scours the dark web to find an assassin to carry out a hit. The man he contacts is Charles (Ricardo Casella), a psychopath who enjoys his work a little too much, the man killing innocent women for kicks in his spare time.

After Charles has fulfilled his latest contract, the film jumps back in time to show Arthur as a young man, who - as in The Sixth Sense - can see dead people, and who is so disturbed by his horrific visitations from the mutilated and decaying that he tries to take his own life. However, the spirit of a dead circus clown prevents him from doing so, telling Arthur that he must use his gift to save good souls from torment and to condemn the bad. And to say any more about the plot would be to spoil the film.

Along the way, we are treated to a woman being scalped and then shot in the head, two women being murdered by Charles after he procures them for sex, a couple of grisly female ghosts, and the sight of a woman tormented by a demon eating her own arm: sucks to be a woman in this film.

Our Evil does end on a happy note for Arthur and his adoptive daughter Michele, but Charles gets what he deserves (the credits roll before we see what happens to him, but we know it ain't gonna be nice!).

A middle-aged bold man called Arthur watches a snuff video on the dark web, a bound woman is scalped then shot in the dead. Not pleasant but this certainly started off strongly. Arthur then meets up with Charles the killer in a bar to arrange a hit. Arthur goes home, meanwhile Charlie picks up two lesbian hookers, takes them home and kills them. No spoilers but when Charles carries out his hit it is a real curve-ball (plus a good jump scare), how he manages to shoot two people in the head sat at an indoor table when he is outside is another matter. From now on it gets weird. And boring, the film is very talky and whilst I don't speak Portuguese the acting is poor. I bought this DVD (thankfully cheaply) partly because I liked the sleeve artwork featuring a demonic figure in silhouette, sadly the demon in the film looks terrible. As does a clown who is some kind of supernatural mentor (?) to Arthur. The film did start off reasonably interesting but what then follows is slow, boring and very confusing. I hated it.

I love national cinema with a new look, and a different approach, something for grown ups... A very good horror, with an agonizing, bizarre beginning, and between disgust and nervousness, very good, an average second act, slow, but with a necessary and plausible justification (for believers in the supernatural), or not, but it closes with a splendid third act, for more horror works from the national cinema, which scares, disgusts and prides... I love it...