Evilenko (2003) by David Grieco

Director: David Grieco

Year: 2003

Country: Italy

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Serial Killer

Plot:

After being fired from his job, a disgraced schoolteacher slowly goes insane to the point that it turns into a sickening desire to kill and devour his underage prey, eventually bringing a detective on board to solve the crimes and stop him from continuing his spree.

Review:

This was a generally intriguing if flawed serial killer effort. One of the main elements within this one is the means through which it sets up the compulsive desire to kill others and look deep into his inner psyche. With these aspects taking place more in a psychological manner rather than overt with the exploration of everything leading to the eventual outbursts of violence and depravity depicted by his actions, there's a nice bit of insight into the series of outbursts where he goes after others to the point of brutally and graphically killing them. This kind of intrigue into his psyche makes for some chilling opportunities to understand him and what he's all about when it starts to get more focused on his crimes which don't get into the exploitative realm that it easily could've but still retain a sense of discomfort that's quite noticeable in how he goes about everything.

By the time this moves into the investigative angle of the detective looking to contain the madman, this one stumbles quite a bit as there are some underwhelming elements to this. The idea of keeping the investigation in this manner slows the pacing to a crawl and allows the film to run on far longer than it really should with the kind of needless storytelling thrown in to try to analyze his mindset beyond what's necessary. These factors could've been reduced in favor of adding more salacious imagery as this isn't as extreme as it could've been outside of a few sequences. Whether that's due to the lack of information on the particular case or the desire to downplay everything but it could've been used a bit more here to help match the intensity of the rest of the film as these hold it back.

Overview: ***/5

A decent enough look into the mind of a serial killer, there’s enough to like here that it keeps itself enjoyable for fans of this kind of approach even with the flaws present. Those with an interest in this kind of genre fare or are fans of the actual story will want to give it a shot while most others out there should heed caution.