Movie Review: Evil Intent (2010)
Evil Intent is an SOV-style indie horror/thriller film made in 2010. It was written, directed, and produced by Glenn Berggoetz who also played the psychologist in this film. The story is about a couple of friends Stephanie (Giovanna Leah) and Kelly (Libby Baker) who are roommates and end up in a love triangle with their mutual friend Paul. (Jason W. Griffith) They invite their friend Tricia (Andrea Rabold) over for pizza, board games, and blood pacts. The typical sleepover. Stephanie is on some medications and has some quirks in her personality. Nothing too odd at first, but Stephanie is dating Paul, and Kelly used to date Paul which is creating some tension and seems to be intensified when Paul is brought into the conversation.
As this story unfolds, Stephanie is showing more of her crazy side, and Paul becomes more and more the focus of conversations, which just keeps increasing the characteristics of her behavior. The situation with Paul gets worse, as Stephanie’s friends are not very supportive, and have their own motives. These motives may backfire, as Stephanie begins to hear some voices that also have some motives, and they want Stephanie to act on them.
Before going into anything else, let’s preface this by pointing out that this was Berggoetz’ first feature-length film and has gone on to direct about 15 other feature-length films since, and a less-than-perfect first feature is not uncommon. This film seemed like it was filmed on a micro-budget, which is definitely reminiscent of some old SOV films. SOV, for those who don’t know, is short for “Shot-On-Video”, in which mostly only a video camera was used. This resulted in a lot of very shoddy production, but these films are actually enjoyed by a lot of people for this reason. One example, in particular, is one of our favorites Sledgehammer from 1983. This film has a lot of the same characteristics. The sound is not consistent, and the production overall just feels like it was shot with a VHS camera.
What we liked:
Evil Intent has a lot of charm of the old SOV-style films. We aren’t sure whether this was intentional or not, but it works here. When a film on a low-budget uses equipment that is higher-quality than the film itself, it magnifies the flaws of the film by a lot. The acting was also ok in this, despite being a micro-budget film.
What we thought could have been better:
There really wasn’t a score in this film for the most part. There were moments, but it makes a lot of the scenes seem like they drag on a bit, because they depend on the dialogue more. When there were moments of it here and there, it definitely made the scenes better.
Overall:
Evil Intent doesn’t bring the best production quality to the table, but that may be the best thing about it. It has a good story, which is tied up neatly at the end with some surprises, and feels like a film with this kind of budget should feel. If you are a fan of old-school SOV horror, or just low-budget indie horror/thrillers we would recommend you give this a shot. If not, this may not be the film for you. We think it was a great first effort from Berggoetz in feature films, though, and will look forward to seeing some of his recent work in comparison as he has taken on a lot of projects since in the past 8 years.
Check out the facebook fan page for Evil Intent here: https://www.facebook.com/evilintent.glenn/ and the facebook pages for their other horror projects The Ghosts of Johnson Woods https://www.facebook.com/ghostsofjohnsonwoods/ and also Auto Shop of Horrors https://www.facebook.com/AutoShopOfHorrors/. In the fall they are releasing a thriller starring Kane Hodder called Paralyzed with Fear so also be on the lookout for that!
