Idol of Evil Fails on Every Level
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Idol of Evil is a complete mess on a technical level. It’s boring, clichéd, and plot hole-riddled on a story level. Plus it’s not even horror-action as advertised.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
May 24, 2011
Movie Trailer
Image Gallery
Release: January 2, 2009 (UK DVD), April 19, 2011 (US DVD)
Directed by: Kevin McDonagh
Written by: Kevin McDonagh and AJ Nicol
Starring:
Richard Cambridge as David Hilton
Adrian Bouchet as Nixon
Stephanie Elliott as Lucy Lake
Neil Forrester as Jack Tessio
Eley Furrell as Father Calvert
Dr. Kixley, a mythology researcher, has been kidnapped while hunting for two mysterious artifacts with links to Satan and dark power. The Vatican (if you believe the two agents really are from The Vatican, I have a lost Gospel to sell you) contacts his former friend, another researcher named David Hilton (Cambridge), as they believe Kixley’s been kidnapped by a cult of Satanists. Hilton, along with Kixley’s assistant Lucy Lake (Elliott) and his own jack-of-all-trades friend Jack Tessio (Forrester) agree to hunt the doctor down using a map Kixley had secretly sent along prior to his capture. Meanwhile, the Satanists (including another researcher named Nixon (Bouchet) and the creepy priest Father Calvert (Furrell)) are working to get the map and use it to find the artifacts, combine their power, and destroy their enemies!
Well since the box is subtitled “Hell is Forever” and has a very convincing skull on the cover, this has to be a horror movie, right? No, unfortunately Idol of Evil shares more in common with adventure movies like National Treasure and Indiana Jones than any horror movie. Well… if those films had been made for about 9000 British Pounds, $14,500 US. Idol of Evil floored me with just how inept it is. Only two things prevent this movie from receiving the lowest possible rating; First, as terrible as it is, this one is better than THE worse movie I’ve seen, Lesbian Vampires. The other is that the climax, though harmed by some bad effects, is still much better handled than what preceded it, as if it came from a different film.
Overall, this film feels like a Satanic cult spawned it as a torture for us all. First, there’s the plot. The story is massively clichéd and played so boringly and apathetically by the cast that the audience sees no reason to care either. The slew of plot holes and logic gaps make it even worse. How do “Vatican” agents not know the DEEPLY RELIGIOUS myth that Hilton mentions? Why does Calvert tell a cult member to kill our heroes only to be shown going in to do the deed himself? If one of these artifacts is so precious, why leave it in an unguarded car’s trunk? At what point does making out in a stalled car in the middle of your escape sound like a good idea? If the Satanist cult could attempt to steal the map from Lucy and Hilton near their home (and therefore knew where they were early on), exactly why did they not follow the duo to wherever they were going to dig? And on, and on.
Then, there’s the massive technical abomination that is Idol of Evil. First, the audio is dreadful. Sometimes it looks like the words are coming out of actors’ mouths, sometimes not. Characters speaking in the SAME ROOM will each have totally different audio quality. People facing away from camera will sometimes talk with such crystal clarity or turn too soon so that you KNOW they were dubbed. During fights, there are lovely stock punching sound effects that never actually match the actions on screen.
Finally, my personal favorite, this movie was made in England. Now, normally, British accents are understandable. However, in THIS movie, every character has at least one line where they’re completely unintelligible due to accent, background noise, or the DVD’s lack of subtitles... particularly Jack Tessio who is totally worthless as we almost can’t process him at all through his ridiculously thick accent. I won’t even discuss the stock music score that is distracting, overused, and out of place.
The video quality of Idol of Evil makes me wonder how this DVD passed quality control. Not only does the look and feel have a distinct “low quality equipment” edge and the environments look almost identical from scene to scene, the actual DVD is just flawed. I want an explanation for the last 10 minutes of the movie. First, the decent climax happens (featuring the only tangentially horror thing in the movie). Then we fade to black… and we hear talking. This goes on for a while until the talking stops and we get a few more minutes of black silence. The visual then comes back… but silent (prior audio’s video component?). Then, the last scene occurs with proper audio and video, adding insult to injury by giving the movie a sequel hook. I hope I got a defective copy, because if that’s the editing job… WOW!
Overall, Idol of Evil is awe-inspiringly bad non-horror. It’s not the worst movie I’ve seen, but it comes dangerously close. It features a monumentally bad technical presentation coupled with a clichéd and boring plot riddled with holes. If, as the credits conclude, “David Hilton will return”, then I am deeply saddened and angry for us all.
1 Freak Heads (out of 5)
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