The Evil in Us (2016) User Reviews

Anti Drug Campaign

[shawnblackman · 5/10 · 12 October 2016]

During the opening credits they do this stylish editing job with a woman submerging herself and playing in what appears to be blood done in awesome cinematography. Are they telling us we're in for a bloodbath? Sadly whoever filmed the opening scene left after the credits never to return.

A group of friends head up to the cottage unaware that the cocaine one of them has is laced with a virus. First symptoms are bleeding eyes then extreme rage followed by the need to eat somebody.

Once you snort the coke it takes a couple of hours for the virus to kick in so when it does they all start attacking each other. You laugh a few times listening to them growl, grunt and groan as they fight. I think the actors weren't too sure if they were zombies, tigers, bears or some new breed of monster. This flick isn't too bad considering we've seen this kind of thing before. Still entertaining though. The effects are quite good as well as there are some violent moments. If you got some time to kill check it out. I wonder if there is some kind of hidden message in this film?

A 90 minute "don't do drugs" hidden in horror

[jackmeat · 5/10 · 17 October 2016]

My quick rating - 5,0/10. Sheer moments of brilliance in this movie get dragged down by some really bad casting and lack of continuity. The opening credits absolutely drag you in. Shot and edited wonderfully I really just wish whoever was responsible stuck around for the whole film. The story itself is nothing new. This time a group of people head to a cabin in the woods (not too cliché, right? ) for a fun filled weekend. Of course this includes the usual, drinking, sex, oh, and a virus laced bag of cocaine that turns your average paranoid user into a zombie like rage freak who only knows killing. The first crime scene found in the wake of a night of partying is a gorefest with one of the worst looking compound fractures I recall seeing in along time. Unfortunately this is where the lack of continuity kicks in. Great looking scenes like this that get lost in overdrawn pointless moments of which character can act like a bigger snob. The pacing really dragged at times and this gets distracting up until it really gets going. That being said, I found myself interested throughout and at the end you realize after being drawn into a mediocre horror film, you just watched the longest, most violent anti-drug commercial with a huge underlying tone of slamming American politics in recent history. Still worth a view if nothing better is on and for being an indie budget flick it does pack a decent punch and solid message.

It's not all that bad

[rdbanz · 6/10 · 17 December 2020]

Don't listen to all the negative reviews. Although I'll admit the movie won't win any awards, the story is semi decent and the special effects are actually really good. The actors could've been a bit better also.

The dumbest twist ending I've ever seen

[tgoldberg6 · 3/10 · 25 March 2018]

This is a cabin-in-the-wood flick where sexy young people kill each other because a bag of cocaine laced with a psychoactive element makes them all go crazy and hunger for flesh. It's shot like a TV movie and none of the actors have the range to do anything besides "YEAH BOOOIIIIIII" and "OH MY GOD MY BOYFRIEND IS EATING ME." However, the gore effects are good and there's enough schlock factor that I would have still given this a 5 if it wasn't for the incredibly stupid twist at the end.

Basically, a cartoonishly evil Texas republican is lacing popular drugs such as cocaine and weed with cannibal juice so that he can cause mass hysteria and use his anti-drug agenda to get elected president, with the bonus that all of the young reefer democrats will be too busy eating each other to vote. It's like a liberal version of those Pureflix Christian movies where the villains are always cartoonishly evil atheists who hate all religion because reasons.

This could have been worth a 90 minute sit on a rainy day, but the filmmakers just couldn't resist crowbarring their exceptional political agenda at the last minute. Don't bother.

Don't waste your time with this one

[monchunskiha · 1/10 · 12 October 2016]

I created an IMDb account immediately after watching this movie, just so I could post this review.

This movie sucked. I knew it was going to suck after the first 10 seconds, but I watched it anyway. If you paid any amount of money to see this movie, I feel sorry for you. It's boring. The acting is bad, and the characters are even worse. Who wrote these characters? Am I supposed to like them? Sympathize with them? Root for their deaths because of how snobby/obnoxious they are? I felt none of these things. Instead, what I did feel was the urge to run far, far away from any movie that this director's name on it.

28 Days Later is a great movie with a great soundtrack. It's pretty obvious that The Evil In Us was partly inspired by that movie, but it falls so flat on its face that it's honestly just an embarrassment.

Everything looks and feels very cheap and hastily thrown together, from the cops' uniforms to the make-up effects. 90 minutes of pure drudgery. I thought maybe, MAYBE this movie would be a little self-aware because of the cliché setup, but I guess that's too much to ask for.

Probably the worst part happens at the very end, when the director feels the need to hamfist his irrelevant political views into the movie. "Le ebil Republicans were behind it all XDDDDDD world domination, those greedy pigs just want control!" There's no payoff, no message, no interesting camera angles, no effects, nothing. There's nothing. This movie is nothing.

Predictable and old hat

[makka-00955 · 4/10 · 13 October 2016]

How many times is this old chestnut going to be rehashed? It's a weak story-line and when it's set in the middle of nowhere, you know that they had zero budget to work with. Even if you'd thrown money at this, the concept wouldn't have been worth it. That said, the acting is fairly good and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of the cast didn't go on to better things - although, the only way is up for this lot, as far as their acting careers go! I think the evil mastermind behind the plot, was the worst actor of the lot, managing to overact his (small), wobbly-headed part astronomically badly. If you've got no pins left to stick into your eyes and nowhere left on your body to self-harm, this might be worth a watch. If I'd paid to see this at the cinema, I'd be a bit annoyed and I'd hunt down the five-year-old who produced the script and take his crayons away indefinitely. Don't rush out and buy this, or even pay to see it, unless you have zero expectations of life, or think Adam Sandler is funny, in which case you will love it. The movie will probably exceed it's budget in sales, but that won't be hard.

A Good Horror Flick... though with weaknesses...

[P3n-E-W1s3 · 6/10 · 10 February 2018]

This film had so much going for it... and, sorry to say, so much going against it.

Here is your basic cabin in the wood on a lake horror yarn. A group of twenty-something friends decided to spend Independence Day together at a cabin one of their fathers has just bought. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the coke they've brought along and soon the madness begins.

So what has the film got going for it... The Director, Jason William Lee, has a decent eye for composition and some of the camera shots are really nice and interesting. The opening credits are the Horror genre's version of a Bond movie opening sequence; this is both beautiful and disturbing - I loved it and it really piqued my curiosity for the rest of the film. I also really loved the lake section, filled with lens flare, haze, and colour defusing. Also, the simple distortions, which represented the druggies vision, worked well.

The Story... Lee has come up with a secret organisation who are carrying out experiments on people they've kidnapped. This reminded me of Stephen King's clandestine "The Company" out of Firestarter. I do like a good conspiracy.

The Characters... Though most are your stereotypical cast it was the end sequence that really sent a cold shiver down my spine. The Husband and Wife looking over their guineapigs - this scene is still in my mind; nice work Mr Lee.

The Special Effects... Most are basic, and nothing new to write about, however, the girl on the bed is awesome. Just look at that chewed through left ankle... it's hanging on by a thread of flesh. Ouch!

But then there are the faults... Though I liked most of Lee's shooting, the one thing which really did diminish the film for me, especially because it had been so good up to this point, the hunger-raving cannibals. It would have been nice to keep the ingenuity coming instead of just going for the mindless running about, growling, and biting. How much scarier would they be if they still had a rational mind? They could have become cunning instead of just single-mindedly fulfilling their baser urges. Also, the attacks and kills could have been choreographed better. Lee does a good job at structuring his shots, but here it just gets messy. A major let down.

The Story & The Characters... in a lot of ways reminded me of Cabin Fever, it would have been good to create a couple of original characters instead of relying on the tried and tested. Though these are twenty-somethings, you could easily interchange them with any of the innumerable teens that usually end up in these situations. But hey, this is a horror film, so this is expected... to a degree... but it does wear thin. Also, did it have to take part in a secluded cabin on a hard to get to island... which, surprise surprise, has no cell reception... go figure!

However, the good does outweigh the bad, though this could have been a horror movie to talk about. At least it's worth a watch, if only once. So I'd recommend this to fans of the mad professor and cannibals.

A gory mess

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 25 November 2016]

Another day, another straight-to-DVD horror flick which mines THE EVIL DEAD for its inspiration. This low budget Canadian film is about the usual group of vacationing teenagers who head off to the stereotypical cabin in the woods and thereafter turn on each other due to the influence of a wonder drug.

There's really no interest in this old story, which has been done so many times that it has no impact anymore. THE EVIL IN US simply wallows in gore for gore's sake and although the special effects are impressive, you simply don't care about what you see taking place as the script is poor and the characters are all completely unlikeable.

The running time clearly came up short because half of the film takes place in an ice-cold clinic where it turns out that the drugging of the teenagers was intentional. These scenes are slow and boring too and the viewer ends up just waiting for the bloodshed to kick in. I find that these low budget gore films are ten a penny these days whereas films with real wit and intelligence are few and far between.

OK, but it won't blow your socks off.

[bbates024 · 6/10 · 21 October 2020]

Cool idea, not enough scares, never felt a real connection with the characters. Hated the political tie in at the end.

Wouldn't watch again, but don't feel like I wasted all my time.

Starts Okay, Gets Stupid, Ends Horribly

[gdiego-74995 · 2/10 · 28 December 2020]

Okay, SPOILER ALERT! DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED!

It's a decent looking "zombie" movie with all the blood, gore and mayhem you're looking for with this type of film, and the actors are even decent. But that's where the "okay" ends and the stupid to horrible begins.

We have the typical young party going 'twenty somethings' getting together on July 4th to celebrate on an island near Seattle apparently, and once there, communication with the outside world is only possible via a CB Radio! (gee, imagine that). And, the only way to get off the island is the same way one gets to it, via a boat, and it's driven by none other than some "creepy middle-aged guy with a beard." So yeah, typical horror movie tropes included.

The long story short (because nothing else really matters), there are meanwhile, some twisted folks conducting illegal experiments in nearby Seattle by yet another "creepy middle-aged guy" with NO beard, along with his wife and their "millennial" boy admirer (it becomes more clear later 'why' this matters).

Anyway, they (no beard creep, et al) are lacing cocaine with some sort of virus that turns people into raging zombies who then eat people, alive, who may or may not be a zombie too, until the 'cocaine' wears off. And, of course, a party goer has some of this 'bad coke' with him.

Basically, this movie is an anti drug campaign at this point, which in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, until the script writer gets us to the dreadful 'ends horribly' part. Because, guess what, we learn that all along, the 'creepy middle-aged guy with no beard', along with his wife and the kid who idolizes him, is apparently a ranking member of the GOP! THE POLITICAL Grand Old Party! He's 'doctor evil' along with his enabling and equally evil wife and their millennial zealot boy wonder are lacing Cocaine to zombify kids! Why you ask? It doesn't matter! Just REASONS and the GOP, ya know?? And all this while he's running for president!

Yep, can't make this stuff up folks! So this entire 'movie' is an anti-drug, anti-Republican activist ad! Gee, how original (sarcasm). I mean, it's not like people these days don't get enough political insanity in their real lives, right (especially in Seattle)? Nope, we need flipping HORROR movies to be political activism too! I suppose the location, "Seattle, Washington" was supposed to clue the rest of us in?? Who knows what the mental midget who wrote this was thinking, but this really dumbed down the movie immensely. It dupes even non political people into a, "Naner naner naner!" (tongue out, ears twinked) gotcha! moment" for an ending; it's that petty and childish. I watch movies for entertainment, not for one-sided childish political rants on steroids.

So if you think likewise, do yourself a favor and use your time for something better; like doing the laundry, or pulling your own nails out with pliers (more sarcasm). Otherwise, you too will lose around an hour and a half of your life forever!

TIME WASTED!

Seriously underrated. It's my kind of gory movie.

[ahao76 · 9/10 · 25 October 2016]

Those negative reviews here almost prevented me from watching.. Luckily i ignored those negative reviews and try watching it. Turn out its my kind of movie. There is a reviewer here saying this movie "cheap low budget movie almost a SCI FI movie,no blood, no action, no FX, nothing.." Is he bloody blind? The minute you start to watch this movie you will see a lady bathing in a pool of blood and spilling blood from her mouth. Its really a mystery to me why the negative reviewers hate this movie so much even have to lie about how bad this movie is trying to put down this movie.. It may not be fantastic to some of you but its not lousy for sure.. 1 thing for sure those haters are weirdos..

Nothing Special, Until Everything Changed

[werebuffalo · 7/10 · 9 April 2019]

Most of the movie is your average 'oblivious party people' survival horror. Not bad, but nothing to really stand out. Until the very end. The very, very end. Suddenly, everything needs to be re-evaluated. ... From what I can tell, this was released in August 2017. It will be interesting to see how it ages. Anything more would spoil it. Just watch it. Stay until the very end.

not much

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 12 August 2017]

In Seattle, the police encounter a bloody scene with a surviving mutilated girl. There is a mysterious group doing research on a virus which turns people into cannibals. Six young friends have a vacation in a remote cabin. They take a drug except for Brie which slowly turns the group of young people.

There isn't much here that is new or terribly interesting. It's a small horror that never really makes me care. I don't care about the six friends. I don't care about the police investigation. I don't care about the evil secret organization. It's nothing new in terms of gore fest. There is nothing terribly wrong except there is nothing compelling.

Not a terrible movie, but bad production decision

[mchambers333 · 2/10 · 17 December 2016]

This isn't too bad of a horror movie. The gore was appropriate, the acting was good, I even liked the premise of why the "evil" happened (without spoilers). The stupid writers and producers decided to stupidly insert left-wing propaganda at the end of the movie. None of this is needed for the plot . . . it's simply grandstanding BS from some idiots who decided that half of their audience should be insulted rather than leave them believing the movie has a complete idea and storyline. Is it really that valuable to do this and go back to your job at McDonalds?

Please come back with something for all horror fans. Why do you have to bring politics into this?

what a joke

[cyllan · 1/10 · 20 October 2016]

evil tea party leader and republican governor of Texas creates a virus attached to cocaine that makes people cannibals we have a pseudo "cabin in the woods" b- movie with teenagers eating each other .....

yeah that is it.....thank god i didn't pay for the movie....

this piece of trash will stop at nothing to smear conservatives....this isn't worth any stars and the producers should be sued for lying to the public in such a way nothing much happens in 1.5 hours....kids go to a lake ....take cocaine and become cannibals for 24h meanwhile the tea party governor of Texas who runs a separate testing lab goes on television about the war on terrorism and drug.....etc...because we all know it is your average tea party member that goes around spreading terrorist drugs on the young

A good opening that slowszzzz.....Then jumps about a lot, with a surprise ending.

[martynmccarthy1965 · 4/10 · 25 April 2019]

The film opens with promise, considering it is billed as a horror movie. We are greeted with a blood-soaked appartment with 3 victims still lying in the aftermath of a savage crime. Visual effects and direction here are faultless. It is a pity the low budget made the police crime scene investigation look a bit too cheap ~ Hardly CSI Seattle. The police presance throughout is lacking and often a bit to "wooden".

The next scenes are the "Meet the main characters" scenes, and it's the old cliche of American teenage friends, disappearing off all by themselves to have a wild party full of Music, Booze, Sex, but this time includes the use of hard drugs. The "Cabin In The Woods" is actually a large house on a private island that is conveniantly owned by one of the teenagers parents. Another old horror flick cliche: Their cellphones don't work. Sadly this is where the film drags on, dwelling on the party far longer than is necessary, whilst the would be more interesting story, that of people being detained whilst being forced into taking a superdrug, the one that turns our happy campers into zombies, is reduced to an all to brief sideshow. This does not allow any depth of character in the bad guy to develop and as such his importance to the story is diminished, even when he is supported by two superb performances of a couple who are emotionally attached, the two most prominent of the prisoners that we get to see.

The movie eventually jumps into life, turning into a standard hack and slash affair. To be fair to the cast they deliver good performances in the fight scenes, unfortunately the camera angles make the whole visual effect very jumpy and disjointed. The fact that the film rushes the fight scenes, and rushes from one fight scene to the next to get them all in, adds to the jumpy feel of this part of the movie. If they had cut the party scenes down and added to the fight scenes, a better result would have ensued.

The ending is well surprising. What was the movie meant to be? An anti-drugs polemic? It fails on that. Horror movie buffs are accustomed to far worse ways to go than taking a bit of powder. It is Canadian Left-Wing produced, so why not make the bad guy a Right-Wing Republican Senator? That may please the American Left but will surely infuriate the American Right. When it comes to it's role as being a piece of Canadian/American Left Wing propaganda, I myself being a British subject wanting not to interfere with American politics here, I must say that I cannot possibly comment.

The Happy Drink

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 18 September 2017]

First off, the Amazon description of the film is a major league plot spoiler giving out information not revealed until an hour into the feature and at the end. IMDb is slightly better, but still has that hour point spoiler. I was fortunate to watch the film cold.

The film has three subplots. In the first one there was a bloody killing in a Seattle apartment. The lone survivor is at a hospital and is in shock. We await her story. Then we have a group of young adults going out to Crystal Cove to party over the 4th of July and everyone hopes to score. The group contains a bunch of suspects (one in particular) for the apartment killing as well as the proverbial local creepy guide. After we get these two tales going we are suddenly introduced to some kind of military experiment with people being observed in a cell. It takes 50 minutes before we have our next causality and for the subplots to come together. Things are not made totally clear until the end credits, which would have made the film more interesting had this aspect of "Wolf News" been seen earlier with a similar incident...or course that would have been a 4th subplot.

This was a cabin in the woods type slasher with a twist.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Friends take a vacation to a local island for a reunion and end up with a cannibalistic virus.

[tkaine3 · 5/10 · 13 October 2016]

I really do not enjoy most films that are micro budgets but this film had some pretty decent effects and good enough acting. Right from the opening credits the editing looked pretty cool and with the early dialogue a lot of indie films talk too much or not enough but this film felt very smooth. Now what it did lack was originality as far as the plot is concerned, I mean 6 friends 2 cars the cabin get away, I swear if that is all we do in movies portraying America as far as fun is concerned no wonder other country's despise us. But the effects all in all were OK the music was nothing memorable and the pace during the middle could have sped up some. But the end was good by kind of tapping into our real life issues we are dealing with now was cool and it ended better than a lot of micro films so I think this one can be checked out if nothing serious is going on..

mix of Evil Dead with a dash of Cabin in the Woods

[chellssaik · 6/10 · 18 June 2021]

I enjoyed this movie. If you like Evil Dead and Cabin in the Woods, you'll probably like this one too. Some of the actors are great but a few actors overact and are over the top but I really liked the story. Of course, it's not a big budget movie with top billed actors but I'll probably watch it again and I would recommend horror fans to at least watch once.

Another evil cabin

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 3 October 2019]

It's actually not the cabin, so I hope you didn't just go "I saw the movie, it's not the cabin, not useful, not reading this". Although if that is the case, I hope you at least had fun and entertainment with the movie. Because overall I would just call this another run of the mill horror production.

So nothing special here, well the special effects are good for the budget, but story wise or even acting wise, you probably will not be too satisfied. The characters are dreadful and horrible, so no real connection with the viewer unfortunately. Still there are worse movies out there, so this at least get the basics overall right

A surprisingly good film

[mjsreg · 8/10 · 9 November 2016]

When I first saw this I thought to myself it was going to be the usual teens in a remote location get eaten kind of film. My expectations were low.

However, this film is very different from others of a similar story line in that it has high production values - people have put serious thought into what they were producing.

It made a refreshing change to see this type of film with excellent camera-work, editing, lighting, and at least some artistic merit.

The scenes flowed together in a coherent way which draws you into the story and keeps you there until the end.

Certainly one of the better films of this kind.

A movie that does what it's meant to do

[TerribleKatherine · 7/10 · 2 March 2019]

Overall it's really hard to find things that are awfully wrong with this movie. It's shot well, the horror effect work, the acting is good and the plot is coherent. Even though it's obviously not a big budget movie, it is still done smoothly and I appreciate that. I must confess I am a bit of a sucker for these type of movies, like 28 Days Later or The Crazies, so I like the genre already. Some people are pissed off because they think it's disguised as "anti-drug"- commercial. So what if it is? If the movie is watchable, I don't ******* care! Why I didn't give a better rating is because the characters did feel distant to the viewer and the beginning felt just a tad slow. But overall a fun movie, interesting ending and that is why it's 7/10.

This movie just offended me, not recommended

[Indyrod · 3/10 · 3 October 2017]

Just watched the horror movie "The Evil in Us (2016)", and even though it

started out with a lot of promise, with much blood and gore, I despised

the movie in the end. Basically, a group of friends get together in a cabin on an island, and shortly they all start turning into cannibals,

and a drug is involved with some idiotic political influences. yes, lots of extreme blood and gore, but the movie goes nowhere.

And the message it is supposed to deliver, just made me mad. I don't recommend this crap to anybody. 3/10

The boredom in us...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 7 December 2016]

I was lured in by the somewhat impressive movie cover for "The Evil in Us", and I do enjoy the horror genre quite a lot, so of course I would sit down to watch this movie, despite not ever having heard of it prior to getting to watch it.

And I believe it was for a reason that I had never heard about "The Evil in Us", because this was a very boring and very uneventful movie. I managed to suffer through about 30 minutes of the ordeal that is "The Evil in Us" before I got up and stopped watching.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing had happened in those 30 minutes, and I had lost all will to bear witness to even a minute more of "The Evil in Us". It just had nothing to offer. And I can in all honesty say that I will never return to finish this movie.

As for the special effects, which are crucial to a horror movie, well I can't tell you how they were in "The Evil in Us", because there was nothing displayed in the first 30 minutes.

And as for the acting, well let's just say that I wasn't impressed with what I saw. And I am sure that it wasn't because of poorly cast actors and actresses, but the blame and fault is entirely laying with the lack of storyline, script and perhaps also even with the director.

I can find nothing to recommend in the movie, and as such then I can't suggest that you take the time to sit down and watch it, nor can I recommend that you waste your money on "The Evil in Us". If you enjoy a good and proper horror movie, then your money and time is better invested somewhere else.

"The Evil in Us" scores a meager two out of ten stars rating from me. And I do feel generous here...

A terrible movie

[david-1466 · 1/10 · 30 June 2018]

While this began with a decent premise and unlike other reviewers, I did not hate all of the characters, the director's need to ram his political beliefs down our throats at the end of the movie turned what was just a bad movie into a terrible one. Don't waste your time with this piece of crap.