Summary
- Wasted potential haunts this film with an interesting premise that falls apart.
- Unsubtle political allegory and lack of scares make
History of Evil
a disappointment. - Shallow ideology and lack of emotional depth leave viewers unsatisfied with this failed horror-thriller.
Bad movies are a dime a dozen; you forget about them the same day you watch them, with little to no resentment. But bad movies with wasted potential — those are the tough ones. It’s frustrating and disappointing to watch a film completely crumble when it had all the right ingredients to be interesting. That’s unfortunately the case with the pseudo-horror film History of Evil, a title that should’ve been reserved for a much better film; like the rest of the movie, the title bites off more than it can chew. It’s a political thriller mixed with haunted house horror elements, like if The Shining and Children of Men had a baby, though that’s overselling this film by miles.
History of Evil takes place in the near future after another United States civil war has seemingly toppled society as we know it and resulted in a fascist dictatorship enforced by local militias. Alegre, a political prisoner and a figurehead of the resistance, has escaped and reunited with her husband Ron and daughter after several years. With help from a resistance member named Trudy, they hide out in an old plantation home and wait for a team to extract them to the safety of ‘base camp.’ Unfortunately, their hide-out has a haunting history which begins to manifest itself in Ron’s mind, Jack Torrance style. If it seems pretty neat, the end result is anything but.
So Unsubtle It Hurts
History of Evil
1/5
Release Date February 23, 2024
Director Bo Mirhosseni
Cast Paul Wesley , Jackie Cruz , Rhonda Johnson Dents , Ralph Rodriguez , Preston Flagg
Runtime 98 min
Writers Bo Mirhosseni
Studio Shudder
Pros
- There’s a good idea here, and a good setting, but the film doesn’t live up to it.
Cons
- Tons of wasted potential as an interesting idea falls apart.
- The plot makes little logical sense and the audience doesn’t care.
- The political allegory is painfully unsubtle and bland.
- For a horror film, there is nothing that scary about History of Evil.
There are good performances here, especially Rhonda Johnson Dent as the stoic Trudy, but the script allows them no subtlety or complexity whatsoever. And as a political allegory, History of Evil is just blatantly unsubtle. From an organized militia being named ‘The J-6 Authority’ in an obvious nod to Jan. 6th, 2021, to idiotic radio ads selling steroids with lines like, “Don’t be a cuck, power up,” this film spells out its agenda in bright all-caps lettering. It’s immediately obvious from the opening text scrawl, which reads:
“In the year 2045, following decades of corruption and civil war, the former United States fell to authoritarian rule and was transformed into a neo-fascist state known as The North American Federation. State-sanctioned local militias roam the territory, spreading terror in the name of God and country. A revolutionary group, made up of ordinary citizens, formed in the shadows to oppose the barbaric policies of The North American Federation. They are known as The Resistance.”
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This text, along with radio announcements and unnatural dialogue, means that the film is all about telling, not showing. Whether that’s a budgetary issue or not, the film crams in exposition without ever fleshing out its own world, as if it has no time to live in its own design. It mostly abandons any of its world-building after 30 minutes and then fixates on Ron’s mental breakdown for an hour, using it as a way to bludgeon the audience over the head with the basic message — racism and misogyny are the roots of all evil. In fact, the film might even go further — masculinity is the root of all evil. It’s a dull, shallow sentiment in the end.
The KKK Took My Baby Away
History of Evil ultimately becomes the study of Ron grappling with his masculinity and place in the world. He hallucinates things in the house, none more malicious than an old Klu Klux Klan wizard who serves him pie and bourbon and indoctrinates him in the cult of masculinity. Soon, Ron is wondering why he is risking everything for this political activist he married, much less why he is taking orders from anyone at all.
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Paul Wesley is a good actor, and he does the best with the material here, but it’s incredibly boring and unproductive spending an hour watching Ron turn into a Klansman who hates his wife. Forget that it makes no actual sense (isn’t he a political activist who has been fighting fascists his whole life and even married a powerful political leader?).
No, the biggest mistake is that it provokes no emotion. We hardly spend any time with his wife and daughter (ironic, considering this film postures as a feminist film), or any time with him before reuniting with his wife. The plot is interesting, but we don’t care about these people, and History of Evil doesn’t, either. It just cares about getting to its ideology.
History of Evil Is All Ideology, No Complexity
This is such a black-and-white film that it isn’t hyperbole to say that every white person and male person is villainous, and everyone else is virtuous. That’s how simplistic its political analysis is. We don’t get any actual insight into what these people are even fighting against, and what the fascists are upholding. There’s a grandstanding speech at the end which epitomizes this, attempting profundity but ending up utterly vague and shallow:
“For generations, they have used fear and power to control us. Fear of prosecution, fear of violence, fear of death, fear of each other. But fear will not cripple us. To those of you listening who wish to take our lives from us, who wish to silence us, separate us, know this — we are many, and we are strong.”
One thing is for sure — this film contains none of that fear. The poster, in its knockoff American Horror Story vibe, is scarier than anything in the film. Unfortunately, this is a case of potential gone to waste, another example of ideology overtaking the narrative and aesthetic of a film. It’s a shame, because there could’ve been a fascinating film here (wit a great, creepy setting). But History of Evil neither knows its history nor understands evil enough to be interesting. History of Evil is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.
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