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The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing
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Plot Summary
John Felton (Luke Wilson) is a father, husband, and realtor floundering in the trough of the housing crash.
He's lost his job, his self-respect, and his passion for living. But on his birthday he crosses paths with a strange character known simply as "Ritchie" (Samuel L. Jackson). As John's attempts to help Ritchie lead from one thing to another John slowly realizes that something is terribly wrong - everywhere they go it seems that people are being killed.
Will the killer eventually strike out at John himself, or the family that he holds dear? Or will John eventually comprehend that in each encounter with Ritchie he's been Meeting Evil?
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The Good
For a movie that looks like it was filmed on a steady, many mega-pixel handycam, Meeting Evil has some great cinematography and editing.
For example, after one of the murders, the body is splayed on the road and we get this transition to a convenience store where the scene's opening shot is of a barbie doll splayed out on the floor in the same way. And later in the movie when John is being questioned by the police we see some great use of lights and shadows. And in a similar vein, near the movie's climax there's one shot where the shadow of the falling rain looks like blood dripping down Joni's face.
But, the greatest thing that this movie has to offer is Samuel L. Jackson. He brings all of his chops to the table and really conveys a powerful sense of menace in so many of his scenes.
Just as he's bald in the role, you could say that he's been shorn of all of the ridiculous over-the-top-ness of his role as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction. He still does push things, but each foray into the depth of feeling starts from a calm and centered performance as Ritchie who seems to be as in control of his personality and himself as a martial arts master in a Hong Kong action flick.
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The Bad
Yet, at the same time, we're never really told much about Ritchie.
Near the film's end we get a tentative motive for his actions - but it comes from his own mouth, and one of the biggest things that we've learned over the course of the movie is that Ritchie is quite duplicitous. However, this opens up an important question for horror stories based on a single-entity: Is it more terrifying to know the evil that you're encountering, or to not know it at all?
On the one hand, if you know the horror in a clinical, or unremoved way, then it can become less of a threat. That sort of technical knowledge could lead to a technical way to destroy it, or be rid of it and so the threat might be diminished.
Though if the horror was known in a more personal way, then it can seem even more insidious, since it can leave us feeling defenseless and vulnerable. After all, it sets everything on its head.
On the other hand, if you don't know anything about the horror, it gains the element of more widespread surprise. It could come from any direction, it could come in any form, it could do anything. If your imagination has already been slapped across the flanks and sent running, then all of these possibilities give it ample springy space on which to sprint into wild frenzies.
One of the major problems with Meeting Evil is that it never really decides which way to go with its antagonist, Ritchie. It withholds a lot of information until near the end (if what he says about himself can be trusted), but there's also a vague suggestion throughout (made quite clearly as we hear him whistling Dixie throughout the movie and over the end credits) that he is the Devil.
Yet even that possibility isn't fully explored though there's a great set of scenes in which it could be very clearly, but indirectly, established.
Throughout the movie we're shown a little girl wearing red wellington boots who seems to be out walking a little dog. In our first encounter with her, she foils Ritchie's plan to shoot John outright (which is also kind of comical, at least for Ritchie's reaction).
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Then, as we look back at the house throughout the movie the girl's always there - like some sort of guardian angel or lurking demon. But even when she and Ritchie speak before he returns to John and Joanie's (Leslie Bibb) house in the last act, all we get out of the interaction is that the girl's dog sometimes bites. So, it's possible that she's an angel working against him, or a demon working with him, but that's all we're left with: a possibility.
The movie also doesn't do quite as much as you'd expect with the fact that John is a victim of the housing crash, and living in a neighbourhood that has been almost entirely cleared out.
In one sense, placing John in this situation might just be a super context-sensitive way to establish how depressed he is and the dire straits of his family, but since it's just there and taken as a given we don't really gain that sense of impending doom that would make Ritchie's confession of motive that much more believable. <*spoilers*>Though, if we really believed what he says about Joanie wanting to kill John, then the ending where they slip into bed and she just asks "everything is going to be okay, right?" before they flick off their lights would make no sense at all.
While we're at it, the way the American family is depicted in this movie is also a little strange. John and Joni are fit and attractive people while their children are both statistics in a survey on childhood obesity. Though the movie does suggest why childhood obesity is such a problem in America right now:
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Judgment
Meeting Evil is the sort of horror movie that lends itself well to discussions of the genre, what works, what doesn't, and what the merits are to either side of the "know the horror/don't know the horror" debate.
In spite of the movie's lending itself to discussion, it doesn't really offer up what a horror needs to: a solid scare that will make your skin crawl each time a stranger knocks on your door to ask for help with their broken down car, or each time you hear someone whistling "Dixie."
What's more, aside from some nice editing and camera work, Luke Wilson and Samuel Jackson not only make up the lion's share of the movie's acting chops, they also seem to have taken up the lion's share of the movie's budget.
So, Freya, it is without any sort of indecision at all that I say let this one be where it lay. Keep it in mind, that we may all discuss and dissect it and its situation in the great Halls of Filmhalla, but don't bother bringing it in from the Field of Fallen Films.
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Closing
Check back here tomorrow for the next "Annotated Links," and on Sunday for a look back and a look at the week ahead.
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