FILM REVIEW: OUR EVIL (MAL NOSSO)

By Joe X Young 

A Brazilian film with English subtitles.
(Don’t let that put you off, it’s an excellent film)
 
It begins with a guy called Arthur (Ademir Esteves) searching the seedier side of the Internet for a sociopath capable of performing a specific task and he finds the perfect man in Charles (Ricardo Casella) who has posted a couple of helpful videos indicating the kind of man he is. We are shown the sequence so we as the viewer are also in no doubt as Charles brutalises a woman in such a sadistic fashion that I was left wondering if this film wouldn’t have been more suited to a review in ‘The Film Gutter’ section of this site. I cannot say that this film is a gorefest as the incidents are relatively few, but I can most certainly say that this film has a core concept which I found to be totally original, thoroughly absorbing and even thought-provoking.

Avoiding spoilers is difficult here as there are so many aspects to Our Evil which are worthy of discussion and it is so rare to find such intelligent horror as this. It contains twists, none of which are poorly contrived and all of which give a perfect clarity to Arthur’s motives for hiring Charles as one would assume that there would be no logical reason for anyone to ever hire as brutal a bastard as Charles to carry out a…. Ah! Dammit! I almost slipped and spoiled the surprise. You will just have to watch it for yourselves.

All aspects of the film are flawless, the acting is so natural it’s almost as if you’re watching reality, albeit the sort of real-life events the sane among us would readily avoid. There’s nothing glossy going on here, nothing ‘Hollywood’ if you know what I mean, it’s all rather normal in lighting, sound and general mood, which makes the underlying point of it much more powerful, and it does have a point which goes way beyond simple entertainment.

As stated at the beginning of this review it is Brazilian with English subtitles, and we all know that subtitles can be a pain in the arse, but not in this instance as the film is not dialogue heavy. If you like cerebral shockers ‘Our Evil’ will not disappoint.
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Written and directed by Samuel Galli it’s available now for purchase from Amazon