Let’s Be Evil review: A sci-fi horror film based around creepy children and augmented reality.
Let’s Be Evil review by Kat Hughes.
Three chaperones, Jenny (Elizabeth Morris), Tiggs (Kara Tointon) and Darby (Elliot James Langridge), are hired to supervise an advanced learning program for gifted children. Contained within a secure, underground facility, their education is supplemented with Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses. Similarly the trio of guardians are advised by an AI named Arial to wear their own glasses at all times. As they start to settle in, things take a strange and dangerous turn.
The most interesting element to Let’s Be Evil has to be the Augmented Reality. We live in a technology obsessed society and there is so much that you could do within an AR setting, especially in the horror and sci-fi genre. However, Let’s Be Evil severely under utilises it’s best feature. The AR glasses seem to only be present to offer an explanation for the filmmakers choice of making a point-of-view horror film. This would work if the film had any exceptional scares, but everything on offer just feels a little mediocre. Having your viewer at the centre of everything should heighten the experience and yet everything feels rather muted.
This muting and disconnect is likely a result of the decision to have the AR world heavily tinted either red or green. It’s a style device used to highlight when we’re in the real world and when we’re not. That would be fine were our characters not wearing said glasses for about 95% of the run time. The lighting is too distracting and makes everything hard to see, especially our cast of characters. Imagine spending a day looking through old school 3D glasses and you’ll get the gist for what Let’s Be Evil looks like. The visual style clearly has high production values, but it’s all a bit repetitive. However, director Martin Owen is still new to the film game and Let’s Be Evil shows promise in places.
By seeing the film primarily from our heroine’s point of view, the hope was obviously to really bond with Jenny, but unfortunately again, it’s another miss. Think back to all the found footage films you’ve watched, in how many of them have you bonded more to the character behind the camera than in front? Practically never. The result is the same here, rather than bond to Jenny, we instead form a closer attachment to Tiggs, a character bubbling over with personality whom we see constantly.
The plot is muddled, riddled with plot holes. The film starts with a bang, and the death of someone close to Jenny in strange circumstances. Although this event is never revisited or mentioned, which is frustrating. Given that the film starts off with this, the viewer naturally expects that it will play some part in what is to follow, but here it seems like it was forgotten about. That, or it was lost in the shoot or edit due to budget or timing reasons.
What could have been a clever and inventive idea is sadly squandered. An over reliance on style and a lack of substance sadly combine to make Let’s Be Evil a rather throwaway affair.
Lets Be Evil review by Kat Hughes, October 2016.
Lets Be Evil is released in selected UK cinemas on October 28th 2016.
