Horror Film Review

Evilution (2008):  Zombie flick!  Sort of!  Pretty cool movie poster.  Can't say the same for the film itself, unfortunately.  Oh, there's worse.  Much, much worse.  The last zombie flick I watched, I couldn't even bring myself to write a review.  Doesn't mean I should give up hope, though.  And after the first few minutes of Evilution, there was a lot to hope for.

American military bio-weapons research in Iraq goes, as you may imagine, horribly wrong.  Lab assistant Captain Darren Hall (Eric Peter-Kaiser) escapes with a glowing vial of bad news seconds ahead of the army's "cover-their-ass" cluster bomb.  He goes into hiding, takes a basement apartment in a crappy building, and resumes the research.  A junkie steals the vial, shoots up, and we're off to the races.  The army sends Sergeant Collins (Tim Colceri) to clean up the mess.  Of course, he ends up teaming with Hall and some gang-bangers when all hell breaks loose.

Some interesting twists:  1) the stuff in the vial is actually an alien life form the military was trying weaponize; ironically, it turns out the ETs want to kill us and take over the earth.  2) once infected, many folks suddenly become parkur experts.  3) the apartment building manager is a creepy guy who we're led to believe is the devil incarnate.  4) Hall's love interest, neighbor Maddie (Sandra Eloani), becomes infected and instead of munching on the uninfected, is now like the queen of the aliens.  Or something.  I said "interesting" which in this case means fucking goofy.  Oh, and to kill the alien zombies?  Combine bleach and ammonia and, well, throw it at them.  I gotta say, I'd much rather watch our heroes blasting the zombies to hell with guns blazing than tossing condoms filled with Clorox and Ajax at them.  Maybe it's just me.

Breakdown

Acting:  Peter-Kaiser appears to be sleep-acting.  He emotes as well as a fossilized turd.  The gang-bangers are stereotyped and thus annoying.  Colceri is fun to watch simply because he's so gung-ho and hammy.  Eloani can act but I'm afraid she got the part because of her rather ample bosom.  She's wasted on this movie.
Story:  A bit of Reanimator, a bit of 28 Days Later, and a little tiny bit of Alien 3.  But ultimately not enough of any of them.  It just doesn't work.
Direction:  Relatively speaking, not awful.  With a better story and acting, it could've rocked.
Production Values:  Convincing sets, good film stock, audible soundtrack and proper lighting.  It had a $1.2 million budget and they spent it well.
Gore/FX:  Most of the budget went here.  Lots of realistic blood, enough gore to give your gag reflex a decent workout, and some excellent makeup. 
Scares:  Naw, not really.  They do that bloody-hand-sliding-down-a-window thing too many times.
Ending:  Just dumb. 
Verdict:  Should you see it?  It's all right for zombie fans.  Everyone else would have more fun watching Saved By the Bell reruns.

Rating:  3 out of 5.