1/10
Insipid and dull; I feel worse about myself just for having watched.
16 August 2023
One may be inclined to ask "how bad could it be?" I did, and I knew the only way to find out was to watch for myself. I regretted this decision before even ten minutes had passed. This is the sort of horror movie that gives other horror movies a bad name. This is the type of abomination that makes one wish past awards could be rescinded, in punishment, from those recognizable stars who for some unfathomable reason are attached. This is the kind of rottenness that genuinely ruins one's day, and dampens otherwise enthusiasm for watching films at large, just for the fact of having sat down with it. For all those titles that are most commonly spoken of as being among "the worst ever made," more often than not the sentiment can only hold true insofar as those many other titles that are unquestionably even worse go unseen by the lucky majority of viewers; I've seen too many of those other titles that are unquestionably "even worse," and this without a doubt fits right in with them. 'Evils of the night' is pure garbage, and I feel worse about myself for having chosen to watch.

In a runtime of just over eighty minutes, all but three minutes of the first twenty are nothing but nudity and sex that are not only absolutely gratuitous, but which also count among the least sexy or baseline titillating such inclusions I've ever suffered through. Obviously this, and the very casting of certain buxom young ladies, was intended strictly to gain the favor of the twelve-year old boys who snuck into theaters, or whose creepy uncles let them watch R-rated movies and adult videos. For anyone who possesses the slightest modicum of intelligence or maturity, however, such inclusions - of more to come throughout the length - are desperately aggravating and tiresome. Meanwhile, any attempts at humor aren't funny. Any attempts at "thrills" or "horror" are duller than the plastic spoons that come with children's playhouses. I don't know which is more true: that the cast mostly wasn't even trying as they showed up just for an easy paycheck; that Mardi Rustam's direction is astonishingly devoid of any energy or earnest effort; or that the writing is more thin than even an electron microscope can discern. The dialogue is wretched. The scene writing is abhorrent. The characters are empty shells. The story is tripe. The plot development, such as it is, is witless beyond what words can describe.

If one were feeling generous to an unprecedented degree then I suppose one could go to an extreme and say that a couple scattered ideas somewhere herein were halfway to being decent, that the practical effects aren't bad, and that a fair bit of Robert O. Ragland's original music is unexpectedly flavorful and suitable for what this genre flick should have been. Yet if you think such limp, halfhearted praise (no more than one-quarter of a heart, realistically) portends sufficient entertainment, I would alternatively recommend first trying the experience of watching paint dry. If you think that the humble slivers of value 'Evils of the night' could possibly be said to boast are something that can only be found here and nowhere else, or that that value isn't stronger and more plentiful elsewhere, then I can only assume with all due sincerity that this is the first horror picture you've ever watched, and for that I am so, so sorry. Whatever it is that you're hoping to get out of this, what we have to endure to attain even a fragment of worth is far too ignominious to warrant such an insipid waste of our time, and such stupefying drivel.

I don't know whether I should feel sorry for those who got roped into participating, or despise those who contributed. One way or another, this is appalling dreck that I must in good conscience actively recommend against, and spread a warning far and wide. 'Evils of the night' is terrible, mind-numbing rubbish, and you're better off watching literally almost anything else instead.
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