Another Evil , one of our favorite horror movies of the 2016 film festival circuit, finally has a release date. You’ll be able to catch Another Evil on VOD (or during a limited theatrical run) starting May 5. Directed and written by Carson Mell — creator of the best web series ever, author of self-pub sci-fi (Field Notes From Dimension X #3 coming soon) and Silicon Valley writer — Another Evil is unlike any ghost movie you’ve ever seen.
Despite not existing, ghosts and demons have a lot of rules. We know from The Exorcist and The Conjuring movies prayer can dispel them. The Others and The Sixth Sense dramatize how many ghosts aren’t even aware that they’re dead. They want your souls. They want your children. They knock things off walls. They’re made of ectoplasm. Ghosts often hate you; they’re jealous of your life. But ghosts are also desperate to communicate, through Ouija boards and seances and kids’ drawings.
Like giant monster movies, disaster flicks and slashers, ghost movies draw on tropes, scenarios, characters and imagery pulled from a collective fictional mythology. But unlike purely cinematic myths, ghost stories are layered with historical and literary convention. With ghosts there’s the (surprisingly) common belief in their reality. And as a result, ghosts movies are resilient to deconstruction. Even ghost comedies rarely subvert the common rules or deny the underlying assumption of a (typically Christian) afterlife and the continuance of the human ego after death.
READ: 'The Conjuring 2' True Story: A Great Movie, Loaded With Misinformation
But Another Evil writes its own rules, creating a horror movie unlike any other.
Another Evil starts as a traditional ghost story, but quickly becomes something else entirely. In fact, home owner Dan’s (Steve Zissis) troubles really begin not with his first ghost sighting, but when he accepts the advice of a priest (Steve Little of Eastbound and Down and The Catechism Cataclysm) and hires the “straight-up ghost assassin” Os.
READ: 'Another Evil' Has One Of The Best Horror Characters Of The Decade: A Profile of Os Bjorn, Ghost Hunter
Os is the best. Played by Mark Proksch (The Office , Better Call Saul), the disarmingly nerdy ghost hunter seems to exist in the long continuum of eccentric ghost hunters, like Zelda Rubinstein’s famous Poltergeist character, Tangina. But Os soon reveals himself to be something different. Not only does he have his own eccentric ideas about ghost hunting, but he might just prove more dangerous than any spectral being.
The new Another Evil trailer says it better than I can.
Another Evil is funny, creepy and inventive. The trailer probably makes its low budget obvious, but there’s nothing limited about the scope of its vision. Another Evil is more entertaining than whatever new Ouija , Annabelle or Insidious is coming to theaters this year. And if there’s any cosmic or spiritual justice in this universe, Os will join Tangina, Spengler and the fictionalized Lorraine Warren (the real one’s a hoaxer) in the pantheon of legendary cinematic ghost hunters.
