EVIL REMAINS

 2003/89m

A.k.a. Trespassing

“…Long after the killing is over.”

Director/Writer: James Merendino / Cast: Estella Warren, Daniel Gillies, Ashley Scott, Clayne Crawford, Jeff Davis, Kurtwood Smith.

Body Count: 8

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This talky film features a quintet of college kids who drive out to a supposedly cursed Louisiana plantation to film a documentary about a murder that may have occurred there two decades earlier.

Sceptical group leader Mark aims to debunk the myth for a class project. While lesbian couple Kristy and Sharon wander off into the woods to discuss life n’ love n’ stuff, Mark, his weird brother Tyler, and gasbag Eric, tour the house looking for evidence both for and against the legend.

After much bickering and Blair Witch sounds-from-the-next-room styled tension, the boys are successively killed off and the girls become trapped inside the basement, where Sharon begins losing her mind.

Eventually, Kristy engages in a game of cat and mouse with the dog-masked killer, right up until an ending that shamelessly copies The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

While it’s creatively put together both visually and – sometimes – chronologically with accent placed on the characters over the expected stalk n’ slash antics, it’s also that little bit pretentious, rendering it somewhat stale for a low-bud slasher flick. And, for once, the lesbians aren’t solely engaged in topless faux-porn shenanigans.

Almost scary (the cellar scenes tingle the spine) and almost good, but too indecisive on its genre of choice.

Blurbs-of-interest: Daniel Gillies was in No One Can Hear You.