Evil Never Dies

Year: 2003
Written by: A Whole Bunch of Losers
Directed by: Uli Edel
Starring: Thomas Gibson and Cathering Heigl
Info: 120 mins (with commercials) / TBS / Rated TV-14

… it just fades away.

Spoiler Alert: I give away everything about this made for TV movie, but not like it matters. You won’t (or shouldn’t rather) watch this. It’s bad for your soul. You will go to hell if you watch this.

This is one of those fine films from the boys at TBS. Made for TV, made for fun. I don’t know what it is about these kind of movies that so fascinates me. The made for TV format usually calls for a dumbed down script and a film easily cut into a tidy-commercial-break format. That has a way of limiting what you can do. Unfortunately, what they’ve done here is even worse than usual.

Evil Never Dies stars Thomas Gibson formerly of one of the worst TV shows that ran for over four seasons, Dharma and Greg.

The basic gist: Detective Mark Ryan’s wife is killed in their home. It takes him a while, but he finally hunts down the killer and watches him as he’s put to death by lethal injection. All is well and good. Except for the fact that Detective Ryan is now drinking a lot and getting more cave-man like as the movie goes on. Thomas Gibson always seems to have some kind of befuddled look on his face, like the way a dog will cock his head to the side when they hear an unusual noise.

But of course, as we have learned from the title, Evil Never Dies. Well, in this case, it does die but it’s brought back to life by an idiot scientist and his impossibly shapely and attractive assistant (Katherine Heigl). Needless to say, this modern day Frankenstein begins wrecking havoc upon the unwary citizens of a small, Canadian-like hamlet. Note: he doesn’t go lumbering about like a proper monster should. Quite the opposite - he’s just a plain old human that likes to kill. You’d think that once getting brought back from the dead, you’d take a pretty low profile, get some hookers and go work in construction or something. Going around concocting overly-complex kidnapping and murder plans wouldn’t exactly be tops on my list.

For reasons only known to the plot gods, Gibson and Heigl end up as a team hunting down the evil monster lurking about. You know he’s evil because he has a widow’s peak and has dyed his hair dark black. Not only do Heigl and Gibson team up to fight evil (because it never dies, you know) they also team up in the sack in one of the most uncomfortable and unnatural love scenes in all of TV moviedom. They’re being stalked by a crazy, black haired freak, Det. Ryan has an warrant out for his arrest (don’t ask) and Heigl has been running around looking pretty and confused. So naturally, they must consummate their relationship in the middle of a stormy, plot-filled night.

Now the big twist. Near the end of the movie we find that…wait for it… Heigl’s character has been working with the killer all along! Oh…my…God! What a twist! What an amazing, original twist. I was so jaded and dulled by the rest of the movie that the mere reveal of her as a bad guy made me chuckle, shake my head disapprovingly and reach for another beer. Let’s just turn this movie off right now… oh… I have to watch the whole thing in order to review it. Really? The whole thing? But I know what’s going to happen ne…yeah. Journalistic integrity. I get it… but this is just a bad TV movie, I don’t have to watch that carefully right? OK. I guess I do “owe it to the filmmakers.”

The film was directed by Uli Edel - best known for other crappy TV movies, but mostly known for 1993’s fantastically naked bomb, Body of Evidence starring Madonna. Unfortunately, Evil Never Dies doesn’t feature any of the cheese that made that movie so enjoyable. And there’s no nude Madonna to drag us guys into watching it either. So we’re pretty much screwed on all fronts.

The idea with these movies should be to take the Bruce approach. You know it’s not going to be a good serious movie, so make it as cheesy and over the top as the market can bear. At least it’s fun for the audience. Why are they trying to punish us instead. No one should take something like this seriously. Not even the filmmakers. Not even Naked Madonna.

It’s not as bad as Escape from Mars, but it comes pretty darn close.

Movie Grade: D