Babysitter Wanted….by EVIL! “The House of the Devil” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 6, 2025

University student Samantha is strapped for cash when trying to express her independence from an invasive and inconsiderate college roommate by renting a house. In need of quick money to put down the first month’s rent by upcoming Monday, Samatha answers a babysitting billboard ad that leads her to an isolated house outside city limits on a night when the moon is going to be fully eclipsed. Misled by her employers, the Ulmans, that the care job is not for a child, but rather Mrs. Ulman’s elderly mother and in her desperation, Samantha accepts the odd job for the money needed to secure her new home. Alone in a dark old house, Samantha’s nerves quickly tingle and recoil at every sound and strange occurrence, quickly coming to realize the Ulmans may be lying to her more than she knows, especially behind the locked rooms where satanic secrets reside and she’s the key to their black practices during the occultation.

Perhaps one of the hottest directors in the horror genre today with his “X” trilogy, within the trilogy is also “Pearl” and “MaXXXine,” Ti West has been a consistent genre filmmaker since his first feature “The Roost” two decades ago. Yet, before the “X” trilogy, the year was 2009 when West caught the attention of horror fans with his 198’s inspired and veneered satanic panic film, “The House of the Devil.” Shot in Connecticut, primarily in an older woman’s gothic Victorian style home, West wanted to bring back the alone babysitter and old dark house theme from decade the story is set, shooting entirely on 16mm that, too, provides that grainy image and darker aesthetic through each frame of the stock. Initially called just “The House” in initial script treatments, Ti West’s completed film is a production of Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix (“The Last Winter”) in association with RingTheJing Entertainment and Construtovision with MPI Media Group (“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” presenting and is produced by Fessenden, Josh Braun (“Creep”), Derek Curl (“Stake Land”), Roger Kass (“A History of Violence”), and Peter Phok (“X”).

In her western, button-up plaid shirt and high-rise mom jeans, Jocelin Donahue (“Doctor Sleep,” “The Burrowers”) epitomized the look of young college girl of the 1980s and with her dialogue and her eclectic 2-minute dance session through the Ulman house proved she has the speech and movements that resemble the timeframe as well. Donahue is extremely good of taking her character, Samantha Hughes, from a panic scale of one straight up to panic scale of ten in this slow burn, tension-building thriller that isn’t a rollercoaster ride of the next attention deficient disorder event but rather a steady increase of anxiety and anticipation that nags in the back of one’s mind. Donahue has good reason to be as frightened as she appears on screen with the towering presence of the ever something’s-terribly-off-about-this-character portrayal by “Manhunter’s” Tom Noonan and the malicious grim of a steely wolf under a pearly sheep’s wool from “Night of the Comet’s” Mary Woronov as a pair of satanists. Noonan and Woronov don’t have immense screentime and are behaviorally underused in the interactions with their babysitter Samantha as West intended target is for Samantha to dynamically degrade within the shadows and creaks of a creepy old house rather have characters be the foremost formidable, focused fear. In the peripherals is Samatha’s wealthy and vocally blunt friend Megan (Greta Gerwig and, yes, the same Greta Gerwig who wrong and directed that “Barbie” movie) who provides that calling of rationality toward a strange situation only to find herself too wrapped up in her friend’s choices rather than seeing the danger that’s in front of her and there’s also fellow Satan cultist Victor (AJ Bowen, “You’re Next”) who is more or less the son in this Ulman trio of terror. The cast rounds out with Heather Robb (“The Roost”) as Samantha’s inconsiderate roommate and the genre actor Dee Wallace (“Cujo”) in a small cameo role of the Landlady who, refreshingly, isn’t part of the core plot to burden the actress as an accelerant to pulse the heart of the story faster.

Ti West really did harness and recreate the dark, solemn energy of the alone babysitter and/or the old dark house subgenres that propelled films such as “When a Stranger Calls,” “Black Christmas,” and even “Halloween” into the cult favorite cosmos. These particular horror categories are obviously nothing new to diehard fans but they have unfortunately been, for a lack of a better term, forgotten, conjured up only in stored memory banks of those old enough, like me, to have lived consciously through the 70s and 80s and, maybe because of West, audiences starting to see a revival of sorts with modern day retrograding to relive the golden age of the slasher renaissance, popularized by hardcore and gory scares with films like “All Hallows Eve” and the “Terrifier” trilogy,. Yet, “The House of the Devil” is not an overly gory and squirmy disgusting feature as West meticulously structures the narrative to be evidently tense in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar environmental setting of an antiquated house owned by equally antiquated, and frankly weird, bunch in Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov and West guides audiences step-by-step very slowly up to craggy edge before pushing us violently into the infernal grips of satanists and the demons that seek a female vessel for, whom we presume will be, their unholy lord and destructor. The third act rips ferociously in contrast to earlier acts in a spiral fit of rite and sacrifice that incorporates more characters, more blood, and a cynical ending that requires no more exposition, no more scenes, and no further explanation in its wayward wake.

Second Sight Films delivers Satan to us with a new UK Blu-ray release. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is jam-packed with bonus content and a more than satisfactory A/V package. Presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, the colorist reproduction leans into that of an 80s horror with a diffused, mid-level saturation of frame cells on 16mm stock, bestowing the image quality with more noticeable grain elements because of its smaller size blown up. The seemingly white fleck-riddled darker areas or clustering grain experience may discourage audiences of a broad digital generation but for those who know, know how great “The House of the Devil” aesthetically looks as a whole, complete with era appropriate wardrobe and set dressings. Textures and details do come through despite the stock naturalities but they’re not terribly overpowering or as substantially present an a mostly tan or brown color scheme in a lower contrast. The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio offers superb audio reproduction and spatial dissemination, especially through the wood-laden house to where the strain creaks of wood floors and doors offer a side and back-channel chill. There’s plenty of front loaded, two channel action between the dialogue and the rest of the meium-to-close range shots with a range of diegetic effects – i.e. gunshots, telephone rings, and other actionable movements within the frame – and non-diegetic effects that include demonic whisper through moveless lips and, of course, those creaky noises amongst the empty house. Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominent throughout. There are English subtitles optionally available for selection. Second Sight films did a ton of legwork here for special features, conducting and encoding new interviews with director Ti West The Right Vibe, actress Jocelin Donahue Satanic Panic, actor AJ Bowen Slowing Down is Death, producer Peter Phok A Level of Ambition, producer Larry Fessenden An Enduring Title, director of photography Eliot Rockett It All Feels Appropriate, and composer Jeff Grace Hiding the Seams, sound designer Graham Reznick Writing Through Sound. There are also a pair of audio commentaries with 1) writer-director Ti West and actress Jocelin Donahue and 2) West with producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok along with sound designer Graham Reznick and the rounds out with a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, and original trailer. Since we’re reviewing the standard Blu-ray release from Second Sights, this version does not call with all the physical bells and whistles associated with the limited, rigid slipbox releases that contain lobby cards and booklet, usually. Instead, the standard release is a streamlined, green-hued Blu-ray Amaray with uncredited illustrated artwork of Donahue’s character overtop of the titular house with the dark and spooky moon in the background. Instead, is just the disc pressed with the same front cover image of the house sans Donahue and the moon. The UK certified 18 release contains strong violence and gore, is hard encoded B for regional playback, and has a runtime of 95 minutes.

Last Rites: The 80’s knock back with Ti West’s satanic panic inspired alone babysitter thriller with a sleek new Blu-ray, overflowing with new retrospective interviews, from Second Sight Films!

Mother Russia’s Most EVIL Serial Killer is “Evilenko” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Limited Collector’s Edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 22, 2025

Limited Collector’s Edition 4K and Blu-ray Available Here!

Kyiv, 1984 – An aging schoolteacher named Andrej Evilenko is stuck in Josef Stalin’s quickly dwindling sociopolitical communism party and finds himself dismissed from the school after being accused of attempted rape of one of his preteen students. His release from vocation obligates him to write letters to the Communist party still clinging to control and from those letters comes a job with the KGB under the guise of a railroad inspector. Evilenko’s empowerment by the party drives his dangerous urges to rape, kill, and cannibalize women and children over years around Kyiv and Crimea, using his position of inspector to travel. In 1987, Magistrate inspector, Vadim Lesiev, is assigned by the D.A. to hunt down the serial killer who has by then murdered over 30 victims. Over the course of the next eight years, Lesiev finds himself chasing his tail and fearing for his own family’s safety against a monster that has all of Kyiv frightened.

Based off the true crime story of notorious Soviet Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, “Evilenko” tells the fantastically frightful tale of the real “Butcher of Rostov” who did confess and was convicted for rape, murder, and the cannibalization of 52 young women and children, of both sexes, from 1978 to 1990. The Italian-English production is spearheaded by Italian filmmaker David Grieco who directs the film as well as supplies the story’s base material from his own semi-biographical novel on Andrej Chiktilo, entitled “The Communist Who Ate Children” (“Il comunista che mangiava i bambini”). Grieco, the son of the of the founding members of the Communist party, finds a financial means to produce a visual adaptation from Britain’s Pacific Pictures consisting of Michael Cowan and Jason Plette of “Killer Tongue” and produced by Italy’s Mario Cotone (“Malena”), representing the MiBAC, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Activity.

Who better than to portray a variant of the child molesting, murdering, and eating Soviet Andrej Chikatilo than Malcolm McDowell, the British actor who is no stranger to controversial films and performances having the lead roles in both Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated violence in a dystopian society in “A Clockwork Orange” and in the pornography spliced infiltrated titular performance film of the sultry period drama “Caligula.” Being older and wiser doesn’t phase McDowell to shy away from committing to difficult scenes involving minor aged costars, especially scenes with sexually ambiguous dialogue and being pants less while speaking it, and while not a physically demanding role for McDowell nor is it filled with the intense-eyed actor’s usual fiery fervor, but in the shoes of Evilenko, he nails down the real serial killer Chikatilo’s exterior appearance, despite attempting to make McDowell appear younger with just only a wig to convince audiences of the 20-year span in the story, and touches upon the oddities and the quirks that make Chikatilo a delusionally faithful comrade, justified by his own investment into the communist party. Evilenko’s archnemesis comes in the form of district attorney magistrate investigator Vadim Lesiev, played by the underutilized New Zealand born actor Marton Csokas (“Lord of the Rings,” “Cuckoo”). “Evilenko” is clearly the Malcolm McDowell show but Csokas gives his all to a man not only doing his duty as an official of the Russian pervading prosecution but also as a family man haunted by his inadequacies and his inabilities to catch the perverted serial killer that might just strike close to home, putting Lesiev on edge with that nagging worriment. Grieco’s editing and story development greatly undercurrent Csoka’s motivations and plights, distorting his complexities to a minor key of his true self, and letting McDowell have free reign over his subsidiary counterpart. Yet, neither character is fleshed out definitively, none to compel a reason for their idiosyncratic methods and behaviors, which goes hand-in-hand with the purgatorial editing that is loose with the timeframe. Ruby Krammer (“Alien Exorcism”), Frances Barber (“Superstitition”), Vladimir Levitskiy, Ihor Ciszkewycz, John Benfield (“Hitler’s S.S.: Portrait in Evil”), and Ronald Pickup (“Zulu Dawn”) as a psychotherapist assisting tracking down the killer.

As much as the Grieco and McDowell dynamic works to monstrously depict a coldhearted and crafty serial killer coupled with a sliver of slithering supernatural propensities to lure women and children in a fixed trance or, in more conventional means, into doing what he wants with an spellbinding combination of stares, manipulative conversation, or just overall emitting a towering communist cloud of authority, “Evilenko” is deflated by the story’s time lapsing. Opening with Kyiv 1984 and then subsequently in Crimea five years later in 1989, the noting of years or periods is hereafter eliminated from the narrative that becomes a back-and-forth yarn between a select of Evilenko’s pied piper lures and kills and magistrate Lesiev always behind the eightball pursuit of the elusive, unknown killer. There’s a loss of sight on Lesiev’s psyche that is very important to the story and more so at the climatic interrogation scene where both men are stark-naked in a power and controlling situation that harks back to Evilenko’s mesmerizing tactics used against the adolescent prey and Lesiev’s fear and obsession of losing his family to what once was an uncatchable slaughterer who hallmarked with mutilation and devouring. Grieco’s willingness to be grisly is tamer than the expected based off the prologue scenes of Evilenko exploiting and nearly raping a preteen girl but doesn’t take away the effect that the entire narrative arouses an uncomfortable experience teased to always be on the edge of overly graphic but never breaking that threshold; “Evilenko” is one of the biggest blue balls instigators is in last 20 years and that rush of not seeing or knowing can be more thrillingly charged for some than anything totally explicit ever could produce.

Unearthed Films limited collector’s edition has 2-disc, dual format capacity with a 4K UHD and Blu-ray. The second 4K UHD from the label, behind their release of “The Guyver,” solidifies the extreme horror company a player in the ultra high-definition game. The New 4K transfer restoration of the original camera negative is HVEC encoded, presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio with 2160p UHD, on a massive three layered BD100. The Blu-ray comes AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, on a BD50, presented in the same aspect ratio. What’s gathered from both presentations is that there’s nothing to fault them with as both excel to their max output abilities. In fact, the transfers are pretty much identical, integrally achieved by digital optimization of an already optimized digital camera, a Sony PMWEX3 with 35mm adapters, which at that time was the bigger brother and flagship model of the Sony line. A slight grading reduction instills a sense of austere or lackluster coloring that mocks a communist Russia veneer. Close ups on McDowell’s unique features and the expound of particulars in the surroundings, especially when engulfed in leaf-covered and tree-thick woods, tell of the emerged details and textures in a higher pixel count. An English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio is the sole mix available. The back and side channels are essentially used sparing for a few flakes of brief ambient hubbub in what’s mostly a frontloaded conversational piece of mostly McDowell in one of his great monologuing moments. We get some nice oblong orchestral pieces from the late David Lynch regular composer Angelo Badalamenti (“Lost Highway,” “Twin Peaks”) that incorporates haunting harmonies and soft, ethereal vocals that play into the loss of innocence theme. Dialogue’s healthy and prominently favorable next to the unchallenged low ran range. English subtitles are available for selection. The BD100 offers only the feature, and a new commentary track with director/writer David Griece and star Malcolm McDowell while the Blu-ray offers the same commentary plus Evilenko Dossier: Andrei Chikatilo, the examination of the real killer against the onscreen rendition, cast and crew interviews with Grieco, McDowell, and Badalamenti, a photo gallery, and the original film trailer all within the bonus content of a fluid menu with Badalamenti’s and vocalist Dolores O’Riordan’s main track “Angels Go to Heaven.” The limited collector’s edition is housed in a cardboard slipcover of one of the many variants of Malcolm McDowells face slathered in soviet red. The black Amaray has the same cover art with no reversible cover. The discs are snap-locked in place on opposite sides, pressed with another slathered in red image pulled from powerful interrogation scene between Evilenko and Lesiev. Both formats are not rated, locked region A encoded, and have a runtime of 111 minutes.

Last Rites: “Evilenko” is a heavy story that needed to be told. You don’t hear much about the USSR vulnerability and the real-life serial killer had frightened the proud, the stoic, and the impoverished alike as “Evilenko” seers as a case study mental illness, is a metaphor for deteriorating Communism, and a tale too terrible to forget and despite some pacing issues and timeline infractions, Grieco and McDowell pull off a rather nasty semi-doc of one of the worst killers to ever live.

Limited Collector’s Edition 4K and Blu-ray Available Here!

EVIL’s Brush Stroke of Genius in “Art of the Dead” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 26, 2019

The Wilsons’ are the perfect portrait of a nice family; they’re wealthy but charitable and kind without exploiting the humility of others. However, when Dylan and Gina Wilson bid and win on the SinSational art collection at auction and hang the enchanted paintings strewn through their mansion estate, a strange succumbing to sin overwhelms their moral fiber. The paintings of Dorian Wilde, an eccentric and obsessive 1890’s painter who achieved eternal soul longevity by making a pact with the devil, created the art, depicting primal animals symbolic of the seven deadly sins, by using canvas and paint out of flesh and blood of his victims. The Wilsons’ become corrupted and carry out the sins of Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed, Envy, and Wrath and the only way to save the family from damnation lies in the hands of a former priest, Father Mendale, and a girlfriend, Kim, of the oldest Wilson boy engulfed by Wrath.

“Art of the Dead” is what people call when art comes to life, or in this case, death. From the selective “Emmanuelle” film series and “There’s Nothing Out There” writer-director, Rolfe Kanefsky comes a story woven with the seven deadly sins theme as a foundation that approximates a 90’s grade thriller of epically gory proportions. With a catchy, yet dead horse beaten “of the Dead” title, “Art of the Dead” uses the seven deadly sin theme and blends it with an obvious homage to the gothic literary novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” by Oscar Wilde. The main antagonist, Dorian Wilde, is the merging of the author and his fictional creation. Oscar Wilde wrote the novel in 1891, the same era the story enlightens in which Dorian Wilde makes a pact with the devil. Unlike another notable film, “Se7en,” where a practical killer exploits the capital vices to thwart a pair of detectives, “Art of the Dead” introduces dark, supernatural forces of Oscar Wilde’s work into the fold that are not only abject in what makes us human, but also biblically condemning, spearheaded by a satanic maniac who will do everything and anything to maintain his precious work and eternal soul, Produced by Michael and Sonny Mahal of Mahal Empire productions, the financial investors have also backed a previous Kanefsky film, another occult gone astray thriller entitled “Party Bus to Hell,” and in association with Nicholas George Productions and Slaughtercore Presentations.

Another pair of producers are also a couple of headlining actors who are household names – “Sharknado’s” Tara Reid and “21 Jump Street” actor and avid painter, Richard Grieco. Reid plays a snooty and shallow art gallery curator who sells willingly the Dorian Wilde set knowing well enough of their malignant history, but Grieco has a personal connection toward a film regarding art more so than the dolled up Reid because of his nearly 20 year passion as an painter of Abstract Emotionalism. His character, Douglas Winter, is obsessed with the SinSational collection to the point where it uses him as an instrument to kill his artistically unappreciative family; a sensation washed over as parallel and broad among all artists alike fore sure. Jessica Morris (“Evil Bong 666”) and Lukas Hassel (“The Black Room”) also headline. Morris provides the sultry and lustful-influenced mother, Gina, and her golden hair and blue eyes has a fitting innocence that’s is tainted and provocatively shields the cruel intentions of lust and power while Hassel, a giant of a man, immediately becomes capitulated to greeds’ warty influence. Each actor renders a version of their paintings and each dons the sinful presence gorgeously with individual personalties and traits; those other actors include Cynthia Aileen Strahan (“Dead End”), Sheila Krause, Jonah Gilkerson, and Zachary Chyz as well as “The Black Room’s” Alex Rinehart and Robert Donovan along with Danny Tesla playing the demonic proxy of Dorian Wilde.

“Art of the Dead” embodies an innovated spin on a classic tale of self-absorption and deferring one’s own detrimental sins upon others to carry the burden. Kanefsky grasps the concept well and visually sustains a contextualized 98 minute feature that carries a straightforward connection to the Gothicism of Oscar Wilde while cascading a family tree (pun intended) of problems that pinpoint each sin’s affecting destruction upon the soul through a wide burst of dispersive poison. While the idea is sound enough, the script and narrative channelling hardly carries the equivalent weight of the idea and comes off clunky, cheap, and sometimes uncharismatic. “The Black Room” was the last Kanefsky film critiqued at ItsBlogginEvil.com and the script was noted with the characters that hardly progress up toward and out of the despondent and deviant muck and it was the filmmaker’s softcore cinema background that attributed to the characters over-saturated girth of lust, which elevated and hindered “The Black Room’s” incubus storyline. With “Art of the Dead,” Kanefsky redresses the lust to quench just the respective sin with the right amount of perversion, represented by the mythical, sex driven Satyr that was created beyond being a nice touch of storytelling, disturbance, and meta kinkiness. Kanefsky continues to proportionally feed each sin the same manner with the exception of Pride that lures in a specific victim; however, the paintings’ insidious nature wonders to a circumstantial level at best with Kanefsky’s tongue-and-cheek dialogue and uncouth playfulness of Dorian Wilde while possessing the flesh of a black-laced, Fredrick’s of Hollywood-cladded Gina.

Umbrella Entertainment and ITN distribution release “Art of the Dead” onto a region 4 DVD home video and is presented in a widescreen, 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The sterile and polished look of the image renders doesn’t invite stimuli to visual senses, but is superbly clean and free of blotchiness that can routinely be a contrast issues with darker, indie productions; however, the digital source is nicely maintained and the darker scenes and colorfully deep portions of the paintings, the viscous blood, the modernized Wilson house, and the anywhere else have quality caliber. Visual and practical effects are necessarily key for “Art of the Dead” to be successful and the film scores a combination of talent to enhance the ho-hum photography with renaissance man Clint Carney, whose visual effects work on his own written and starred in film “Dry Blood” was flawless and who also painted Dorian Wilde’s works of art, and some solid practical and Satyr creature effects work by “Child Play’s 3” Victor Guastini and the VGP Effects team. The English language Dolby 5.1 surround sound audio is clear, precise, and no inkling of issues with the range and depth of ambient sound. Like most standard DVD releases from Umbrella Entertainment, this release comes with no bonus material or even a static menu. To observe his work as a whole, filmmaker Rolfe Kanefsky has nothing to prove with a body of work spanning over nearly three decades, but in reducing “Art of the Dead as a singular film, there in lies a double edged sword. A true sin is to headline a film with actors with brief roles just to draw in investors and an audience, yet “Art of the Dead” also finds innovated modernism out of classical creativity, giving new life by homage, and displaying some maximum carnage fun with plenty oil and water color.