Resurrection of Evil (2017)

"Best Left to Rest In Peace"

Here we go with another film that's had a mysterious retitling. One presumes HAVENHURST was ok for this film's intended US, French and Peruvian markets (amongst others) while those of us in Argentina, Mexico, Chile and the good old United Kingdom need something a little more obvious, so RESURRECTION OF EVIL it is, and now it's getting a UK DVD release from Thunderbird.

The Havenhurst of the US (et al) title is a very posh New York gothic apartment building which seems to be filled with people who enjoy the most by-the-numbers vices. It also seems to be owned and run by someone (or something) who probably reads the Daily Mail and watches Fox News. As long as you can stay away from the naughty habits that would make the average Sun reader's blood boil with jealousy that they're not getting to do it themselves, then you're fine. However, slip back into your old 'evil' ways of prostitution or drug abuse and something horrible happens to you.

Julie Benz plays Jackie Sullivan, a recovering alcoholic (Aha!) who moves into Havenhurst after being released from rehab. She ends up in the same apartment as was occupied by her friend Danielle Harris (seen in the prologue playing a character called Danielle and giving you an indication of how imaginative the script is going to be) who has disappeared. 

Jackie meets Fionnula Flanagan (trying hard to do posh Sheila Keith) who owns the building and is obviously a bit odd from the outset. Jackie's life gets stressful. The local off-licence makes a few sales. Of course, it's only when Jackie unscrews the cap of that whiskey bottle that Bad Things Happen. We know they're going to happen because some poor girl playing a prostitute has earlier been subjected not just to the indignity of being the gratuitous nude sex scene but also the gratuitous torture porn scene that follows. How gratuitous are the scenes? Well, I thought they were, so that means very gratuitous indeed.

What annoyed me most about RESURRECTION OF EVIL, though, was that it runs a rushed, scant, cynical 76 minutes, so there's really no excuse not to allow a bit more time to expand on the bits of this that don't make much sense at all. Naughty film-makers - I doubt they would have lasted long in a real Havenhurst as a truncated running time and garbled plot are certainly 'vices' much more worthy of torture here at the House of Mortal Cinema. Extras are minimal. 

RESURRECTION OF EVIL is out on DVD in the UK from Thunderbird Releasing on Monday 9th October 2017