THE EVIL WITHIN. (2017) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ANDREW GETTY. STARRING MICHAEL BERRYMAN, FREDERICK KOEHLER, SEAN PATRICK FLANERY AND DINA MEYER. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
‘THE EVIL WITHIN’ A FILM BY ANDREW GETTY
(IN CONJUNCTION WITH SCREENBOUND PICTURES)
ON DVD & BLU-RAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2017
‘Indisputably compelling. Getty has left his mark upon the world’ STARBURST
‘Some truly outré horror…scares persist for many sleepless
nights afterward’ THE GUARDIAN
ON DVD & BLU-RAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2017
‘Indisputably compelling. Getty has left his mark upon the world’ STARBURST
‘Some truly outré horror…scares persist for many sleepless
nights afterward’ THE GUARDIAN
This is either a work of genius or the sickest thing I've ever seen, haha. It's the brainchild of Andrew Getty, the paternal grandson of the guy who founded the Getty Oil Company back in the day, so we can assume that there was a spare billion or two in the family coffers to make financing the film not as difficult as it might otherwise have been. No need for crowd-funding or kick-starting here, then...!
Sadly, Andrew Getty, who had first conceived the project a whopping fifteen years before it was eventually made, didn't live to see its release this year. He died in 2015 of stomach problems complicated by heart disease and methamphetamine use. It's always sad when a director, or indeed any artist, doesn't live to see his own success. I think he'd be genuinely pleased at the way his creepy masterpiece is being perceived.
It's the story of a young special-needs American male called Dennis Peterson, who could be anywhere from twenty to forty years of age, we're not really told. (Just remembered he's thirty, so I was half-right...!) The actor who plays him deserves a flippin' Oscar, he's brilliant in the role of the differently-abled young man.
He could be autistic or have Asperger's Syndrome, as he exhibits some of the symptoms of these conditions, such as a terrible fear of things changing or deviating even slightly from the way he likes or needs them to be. Mind you, I'm a bit like that myself. Terrified of change, I am, so what does that make me...?
Dennis lives with his older brother John, who's his carer. It must pay well, because they have a bloody gorgeous house...! John also has a glamorous girlfriend called Lydia. Dennis is the only reason that John and Lydia haven't gotten married yet or moved in together. Lydia doesn't hate Dennis exactly, but she's not his biggest fan either.
Lydia loves John and wants to be his dearly-beloved missus. That's understandable, right? It's the least you can expect from a guy you've been seeing for a good long while. John, on the other hand, seems to feel that being married and caring for Dennis, pretty much a full-time job, are incompatible with each other. Mutually exclusive, as it were. He feels like he's got to put Dennis first, which is also understandable.
It's hard on Lydia though. She wants marriage and babies, as she tells John in no uncertain terms. The cute cuddly newborn kind, that is, 'not a thirty-year-old who masturbates...!' You can kind of see her point, can't you?
On the other hand, you can't just shove a differently-abled man in a storage cupboard to suit your own convenience. Lydia thinks that John should put Dennis in a home. John, for secret reasons of his own, refuses to do this. He owes Dennis, he feels, but he won't say why. Hmmm. There's a mystery there for sure.
Dennis, meanwhile, is living a nightmarish existence of bad dreams coupled with some mighty bad reality. An evil mirror- yes, the mirror is evil!- recently placed in his room by his brother is proving to be a source of horror, but also temptation, to the troubled young man who's having
difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction, reality from black-as-night fantasy...
Dennis, the real young man, is differently-abled and often his thoughts are muddled and hard to formulate and express. Dennis's mirror-image, on the other hand, is frighteningly focused and together. He's the Dennis that Dennis would be if Dennis weren't differently-abled, if you get me. He's got a proposition for the real-life Dennis.
How would Dennis like to be able to 'fix' his confused brain? He would? Gee, that's great, Dennis. Well, here's whatcha do. Mumble, mumble, mumble then as the demonic Dennis pours his poison into the susceptible ears of the real-life Dennis.
The real-life Dennis is appalled. But then, the thought of a 'fixed' brain, operating the way everyone else's does, is just too tempting to the vulnerable young man. He signs on the metaphorical dotted line with his alter-image. From this point on, the blood will flow like rivers through Dennis's life and the lives of everyone around him...
I like the way that disabled people are portrayed in this film as being just as capable of sick twisted f***ery as the rest of us. Well, why shouldn't they be? We're all just people at the end of the day. I'm sure that disabled people are sick of playing victims in horror and other films. Here, a disabled person is the naughty, nasty perpetrator of the most unspeakably evil acts and it's tremendous fun to watch. Looks like the actor playing him is having the craic as well. Cue evil snigger. Heh-heh-heh...
The best thing about this already excellent horror flick is the presence in it of the wonderful Michael Berryman (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, THE HILLS HAVE EYES) as the Demon behind the shenanigans in the mirror. This superb actor, instantly recognisable and so utterly beloved of horror fans everywhere, was sixty-seven years old when he made this film but he'd lost none of his power to inspire blind terror in the viewers. Long may he continue to do so.
I don't feel too sorry for John, Dennis's brother and carer, by the end of the film. After all, if your differently-abled brother has been clearly observed buying books on taxidermy and forensics and evisceration and stuff and you don't go downstairs to investigate the weird smell and strange noises coming from the basement, where you know for a fact that your brother has been holed up for weeks, then you know what? You deserve everything that's coming to you...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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