The Evil Within (2017)

Director: Andrew Getty

Screenplay: Andrew Getty

Cast: Frederick Koehler as Dennis Peterson, Sean Patrick Flanery as John Peterson, Dina Meyer as Lydia, Michael Berryman as Cadaver, Kim Darby as Mildy Torres, Francis Guinan as Dr. Preston, Brianna Brown as Susan, Tim Bagley as Pete

Synopsis: After being plagued with nightmares, the special-needs disabled Dennis Peterson (Frederick Koehler) finds them to become more hellish when his older brother John (Sean Patrick Flanery) finds an old mirror in their home, his reflection starting to convince him to kill to get rid of the bad dreams. As John deals with the effect of having to care for Dennis is straining his relationship with his girlfriend Lydia (Dina Meyer), Dennis is being pushed further into horrifying crimes least he is plagued with worse nightmares when he tries to stop his actions.

[Spoiler Warnings Throughout]

The back story of The Evil Within is compelling, as much to do because it is but a piece connected to the Getty family, beginning with J. Paul Getty, the founder of the Getty Oil Company, one which has been marked by tragedy and incident yet has had a strange, constant connection to cinema in odd circumstances. The kidnapping of his grandson John Paul Getty III has been interpreted through Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World (2017) and the first season of Trust (2018), Simon Beaufoy, Danny Boyle and Christian Colson's project about the Getty family. John Paul Getty III himself starred in a few films including Raul Ruiz's horror-drama The Territory (1981) only for a stroke to drastically incapacitate him physically before an early death at 54. (His own son Balthazar Getty is, to my surprise, the same actor who stars in one of my own favourite films, David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) as the man Bill Pullman turns into mid-way through, adding to the Gettys' cinematic connections). And then there is Andrew Getty, the subject of this review and the director-writer of The Evil Within, who took over fifteen years to make a film fed on his real nightmares, costing over $5 million (maybe more) of his own money to try to complete, and who tragically himself would die at the age 47 with the film having to be finished by producer-editor Michael Luceri.

For me, The Evil Within was always of immense fascinating and something I was dying to see, realising I am as much a vicarious film viewer of other people and how a film is of their own personality as much as good cinema. Getty's mix of amateurism but with the sacrifice (to the point of crippling himself financially) to have actual, jaw dropping scenes rarely found in modern horror cinema was of interest. I am also aware, clearly troubled and a meth addict whose drug influenced lifestyle contributed to his early demise, The Evil Within comes with a sadness that cannot be treated in a crass way, with respect to the dead regardless of my opinions of the final product when I finally saw it. There's also the issue, even with an acclaimed filmmaker like Orson Welles with The Other Side of the Wind (2018), that whenever there is a project without the original creator's involvement to finish it, rebuilding a film to a cohesive whole from the existing materials will both be difficult and with loose ends, and especially in this case factors existing where the result will be chaotic and raw due to Getty's constant tinkering and the issues he had, a sense frankly he may have never even finished the film if he was still alive, just at a stage of constant perfectionism to a point it would've never been perfect for him to conclude.

And my God, The Evil Within is both a car crash but also such a compelling one deserving interest for all those fifteen years plus... the initial dream sequence starts with a voice over (with very idiosyncratic dialogue) and a legitimately inspired attempt to show the disruptive, varying qualities of dream logic as experienced, the Surrealist in me having to applaud it for the ambition. All of this is followed by a dream in a theme park within the desert with both the absurd (an adult voice over speaking the words of a little boy, Michael Berryman in a fake wig and moustache as a haunted house ride attendant) and the disturbing seen, as a ride with no scares and the boy feeling ripped off leads to his mother having lips for eyes.

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After this, into the story properly, you do have to contend with a story which is strange and ill thought-out, drifting into tangents never making sense. There is also immediately, impossible to pass, that it is about a man with a learning disability (played by Frederick Koehler) that becomes a serial killer and is played in a way that dangerously veers to what Tropic Thunder (2008) parodied with the Simple Jack running gag. As someone with a learning disability, autism, whilst I do not represent every individual with a physical or learning disability, I'll be the first person to be concerned about representation. Koehler's performance is curious, on one hand trying (especially, as he himself has admitted, he is playing as aspects of the director himself) but on the other showing an overripe portrayal which is complicated by a lot of personal material clearly being filtered through the character. Thankfully, this isn't like Twisted Nerve (1968), a British exploitation film most know for the main theme borrowed for the Kill Bill films but forget suggested people with Down's Syndrome were freakish deviants; a film like The Evil Within in contrast is merely misguided with its earnestness rather than deplorable.

It's also established that Dennis Peterson is being forced into these murders, starting with animals than to children and so forth, because his evil reflection is tormenting him with dreams. Due to the nature of the production, this does get convoluted. Ultimately its revealed his older brother as a child caused his disability, brain damage due to pushing him down the stairs and the lasting injuries, causing immesne guilt for him and looking after Dennis from then on, complicating (i.e. muddying) the focus. This alongside his evil reflection (actually Berryman as Legion, the being of many forms from the Bible) using very peculiar arguments to convince Dennis to both murder and take up taxidermy, never in the mean time explaining Legion's origins or why Legion is obsessed with this course of action. That it is Legion, a clear Biblical reference in one moment of dialogue, never gets taken any further and, alongside the "puppet show" that ends the film, makes the trajectory for Dennis and the motifs complicated, not offensive just confused if you try to think about it too much.

The logic of The Evil Within is both its greatest flaw but, alongside its more phantasmagoric moments, why it's compelling in the first place. Whilst the plot moves forwards conventionally, how it goes ahead is both effected by the chaotic origins of the material and a perplexing tone likely fed by Andrew Getty being an amateur to actually making a horror film.  If anything, as a psychodrama rife in clichés, its strange in a fascinating way, with his older brother having a romantic relationship with Lydia (played by Dina Meyer from Starship Troopers (1997)), one where the burden of John having to look after Dennis is causing a strain on both sides in the midst of this horror film, all tinged with the sense this film exists within its own logic as a result.

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Plenty of moments exhibit this - the bizarre plot thread that, without being noticed, Dennis has killed everyone John knows teasing to an almost Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe, emphasised especially as when John presumes he's about to bump into his psychologist but instead enrages a patron, a man of similar dress but incredibly tall with gigantism, the late actor and tallest actor according to the Guinness World Records known as Matthew McGrory, who thinks he's gawking at him as a sideshow exhibition and makes a comment about it back. (His friend, revealing Dennis has indeed been purchasing books on taxidermy and murder, which we know but takes the characters ages to realise rather than a mistake, has a curious mix of fear, perplexion and woodenness to the actor's performance). That entire plot point even suggests a shared dream between Dennis and John which is what takes place when loose strands appear in films; irrational points changing the mood of a film completely.

And then there are the nightmares and practical effects themselves, which are exceptional regardless of everything else. These are the moments in The Evil Within that will burn themselves into your retinas, the money Getty used at least, in his obsessive compulsive perfectionism, rewarding with striking moments. He spent money on the film even for a giant animatronic octopus playing the drums, for a small scene in a sea themed restaurant, so there is a sense that Getty's impulses for spending on the film, as proven, frankly show how much he probably took too long on. However, it also means moments like a mirror trick, with multiple reflections endlessly besides each other, which are incredible or disturbing like a woman contorting spider-like into a horrible monster. That's not even talking of the puppet show that ends the film as, Dennis having used his taxidermy skills to turn victims into materials for a horrifying show including Dina Meyer as a ventriloquist dummy, it turns into something Screaming Mad George would applaud, making for the complete lack of logic to the ending which an exclamation mark. Together it's a twisted, maligned film that's so fatally flawed and visibly scared, but the proceedings are compelling just because of what you witness.

Abstract Spectrum: Bizarre/Grotesque/Nightmarish/Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Andrew Getty's personal obsession, sadly his only work, is nonetheless a legitimately unique one, where even the clichés and terrible creative decisions possess newly gained specks of madness to them due to the results, aware as a viewer deep personal issues of Getty's life and his tragic death mark the film. This means we should not look lightly on The Evil Within, out of respect for him and for those who still got the film released, but the results themselves are something to speculate about for a long time - as someone who treats cinema as much as delving into peoples' lives, the back story is not the only thing of interest with The Evil Within but adds more context to appreciate Getty's work more so.

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