EVIL ED – The Blu Review

Review by Roger Carpenter

What do you get when you mix a bunch of Swedish horror film fans with little film experience and no money but a great deal of gumption?  Why, Evil Ed, of course!

Evil Ed is both a tale of horror as well as a tale of stick-to-it-ness that all aspiring filmmakers should hear, and both are equally entertaining.  Some Swedish kids who grew up on American horror films courtesy of the first video boom and who shared a common goal of making a film that could play in theaters started experimenting with the tools of the trade.  Their first feature was never actually completed before they ran out of steam, but the nucleus of that group, Anders Jacobsen, Goran Lundstrom, and “Doc,” moved right into what would become Evil Ed.  They took the nucleus of a story, about a docile, henpecked film editor forced to cut the most violent scenes from a slasher series who eventually goes bonkers, becoming a serial killer himself, and, over a period of approximately five years, produced not only a movie that played in Swedish theaters, but a film that sold to 60 countries and became a genuine cult classic for horror fans.

Evil Ed is a testament to those who doggedly pursue their dream.  After viewing the initial cut of the film, the creators realized they had produced a boring, talky, and nearly unwatchable story, so they cut so much exposition they ended up not having enough footage for a feature-length production.  So they went back to the drawing board and rewrote the last 20 minutes of the film as well as adding some backstory to the opening scenes as well.  Dissatisfied with some of the effects, those were reshot as well.  Editing, postproduction, and looping (the film was shot with no sound) took nearly two years to complete.  But finally, in 1995, Evil Ed was unleashed across the world.

The film was made as one great homage to all the classic horror films these Swedish youngsters devoured on Betamax in the early- to mid-eighties.  Thus, the film is packed with references to all the great films we know and love.  Some homages are one-liners while others are directly “stolen” shots from other films, or simply found in a character’s name. So we have a shot of a camera traveling shakily down a tunnel like the shots in the forest in The Evil Dead as well as a character named “Sam Campbell.”  There are also some pretty obvious references to other classics like Night of the Living Dead, Fright Night, and Blue Velvet.  These are some of the more obvious takeaways but an astute horror fan will note literally dozens of others, which is part of the charm of the film.

While there aren’t so many direct references to Peter Jackson’s early splatter comedies, the film as a whole draws comparison to Bad Taste and Braindead (or Dead-Alive, depending upon the territory in which you live).  At its core, Evil Ed is really a charming comedy that also happens to be a splatter film.  Ed himself seems to take his cue from Lionel Cosgrove in Jackson’s Braindead—a timid, nerdy type who gets caught up in a situation he can’t control.  The primary difference between the two characters is that Lionel remains a quirky dork right to the end while Ed is consumed by the endless stream of violence he is forced to view and truly becomes evil.  But it’s not his fault as much as it is the fault of his pushy supervisor who ignores Ed’s complaints of hallucinations and threatens to fire him if he doesn’t continue his editing chores.

And it’s these hallucinations which provide the lion’s share of the “prestige effects.”  Of course there are the typical gore effects:  exploding head; girl’s arm hacked off; etc.  But the hallucinations provide the impetus for our fearless filmmakers to really reach for the stars and produce demons from Hell and the like.  Ambitious, no doubt, but for the most part, done quite well considering the no-budget restrictions on the film.

Being of Nordic descent, the filmmakers couldn’t resist adding an homage to one of the world’s true cinematic geniuses, Ingmar Bergman.  As you might guess, for all their hard work and love of cinema, Bergman they are not.  There is no mistaking Evil Ed as a no-budget film and the attempt at Bergman—even in comedic homage–exposes this.  While Johan Rudebeck shines as Ed, most of our other actors are clearly amateurs.  The looping, no matter how carefully completed, lends the film a slightly otherworldly feel as it seems the voices never quite fit with the character’s words.  But for a film made for less than $30,000 American dollars, Evil Ed works pretty well and is pretty darn entertaining. And, for a film that was created using mismatched film stock, it looks pretty good, too.  The bottom line is simple: if you like Pete Jackson’s early low-budget efforts in comedy and splatter, you will most certainly be entertained by Evil Ed.  Others need not apply.

Arrow Video really goes all out with this 3-disc special edition that should have horror fans still holding tight to their grey market dupes howling in ecstasy.  Arrow provides both the original 93-minute version of the film as well as the 2015 Special ED-ition extended cut, which runs at 95 minutes.  The Special ED-ition comes on Blu-ray as well as standard DVD while the original cut is presented on Blu-ray.  Also included is the three-hour version of “Lost in Brainland,” a making-of Evil Ed documentary which traces Evil Ed from the times the filmmakers were teens watching Betamax tapes of The Evil Dead and Re-Animator all the way to the present time as they look for material to provide for the forthcoming Arrow release.  It’s long but fascinating and is a really great look into how not to make a movie.  Other features include a 45-minute version of the documentary, a look at the reconstruction of the film for the special edition, deleted scenes, bloopers, and several trailers and teasers for the film as well as a photo gallery.  The special features actually run longer than both versions of the film put together!  Also included in the first pressing is a collector’s booklet.

Evil Ed has just been released and is available for an excellent price on Amazon or directly from Arrow at http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/category/usa/.