Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

I don’t know much but I do know if I’m in some out of the way dusty diner and a scantily clad woman walks in who is a notch or two above the kind of woman that is usually susceptible to my game… and then this sexy bitch motions for me to come over… I’m not going over there. I’m just not doing it. The dude in this movie ‘Live Evil’ didn’t follow that simple advice and thus we have the beginning of this little vampire movie which is an interesting low budget compilation of bloody dismemberments, titties and of course… social commentary.

The sexy bitch in question would be Sydney (Asa Wallander) who pretty much eats everybody in the diner but unfortunately one just can’t eat anybody because some people simply aren’t fit to eat. Fortunately for Sydney, her boyfriend Benedict (Mark Hengst) saves her from dying from indigestion and gives her a little something to get our sexy vampire through the night. What Sydney and Benedict need is fresh, untainted blood so they load up the Geo and along with their vampire homey’s Yael (Eva Derrick) and Baxter (Gregory Lee Kenyon) set off to Beverly.

You see this set of vampires that we are about to be introduced to have all kinds of problems. First there are a myriad of vampire types, ours being the kind that walk during the day, but they’ve been at war with each other for centuries causing their numbers to drastically dwindle. Then you have the fact that pollution, additives, fast food and all kinds of other poor lifestyle choices has completely soiled their food source meaning that most of us simply aren’t good healthy eating for your average vampire. But the worst situation for these cats is that they are being viciously hunted by a mysterious man dressed in black carrying a samurai sword, going only by the name of The Priest (Tim Thommerson) who seems to be carrying around a vendetta against vampires in general, but a personal one with Sydney and Benedict in particular.

Why does this Priest hate vampires so? All in due time my friends but first circumstance leads the Priest to befriend Roxy (Kimberly Sanders), as saucy sista with a body that would make Pope Benedict XVI stop, turn, tap you on the shoulder and say ‘damn, you see that bro?’ He would totally do that. Roxy will do double duty as sidekick and chauffeur as our vampire slaying duo follows this vampire quartet to Los Angeles… like clean blood could actually be anywhere around there… and on their journey make their way through suspect cops, vampire babies, the worlds whackest party and all kinds of vampire vermin before we can get to the truth on why the Priest hates vampires so freaking much. Oddly enough his sour disposition is somewhat justified.

‘Live Evil’… and that’s ‘live’ as in ‘Live Free or Die’ not ‘live’ as in ‘Live at the Apollo’… is quite the trip of a movie. Remember that this is a low-budget movie and it is low budget to its heart all the way down to its gloriously low budget cast. The legendary Tim Thomerson we already mentioned, but the legendary Ken Foree makes an appearance as a vampire sympathizer in addition to Tiffany Shepis, who has achieved legend status at a very young age makes a cameo appearance as well. That’s a lot of low budget legends right there. Now I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but I have a working knowledge of almost the entire cast, considering the types of movies I watch… say Eva Derrick from ‘Magus’ or Mark Hengst from ‘The Cook’ with Kimberly Sanders being the only cast member new to me. And that’s a cast member that won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

But all that mindless prattle aside the question, of course, would be is ‘Live Evil’ any good? Well… yes it is and no it isn’t. Is that a cop-out response? Most definitely. What we like about ‘Live Evil’, in addition to its fine cast of low budget superstars, is that it is very creative with its vampire subject matter, it’s insanely violent and bloody, had as many car crashes as any low budget movie ever, and director Jay Woelfel and producer Mark Terry found ways to stuff as many titty shots in this movie as could be reasonably explained off as necessary. On occasion ‘Live Evil’ was betrayed by its budgetary constraints with some of the gore shots looking a little bit more artificial than what we were normally used to and some of the lighting and stuff appearing to be a little off.

Where I think ‘Live Evil’ really could’ve used a little help was in tightening the edit somewhat to help the movie move a little quicker because it did tend to drag in spots. Some of this can probably be attributed to the fact that this was truly an independent feature, meaning that it was shot over a lengthy period of time on available weekends and I suppose when cats were able to get off of work which does tend to screw with the continual flow of a film… like I know what the hell I’m talking about… but I’m still thinking they could’ve compressed this movie by ten minutes or so and still not have lost too much.