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Evil Laugh (Vinegar Syndrome) Blu-ray Review

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    Ian Jane
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  • Evil Laugh (Vinegar Syndrome) Blu-ray Review

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    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: November 25th, 2022.
    Director: Dominick Brascia
    Cast: Ashlyn Gere, Steven Baio, Tony Griffin, Jody Gibson, Jerold Pearson, Myles O'Brien
    Year: 1986
    Purchase From Amazon

    Evil Laugh – Movie Review:

    Before Ashlyn Gere hit the big time as an adult film star she showed up in a few low budget horror movies like Dreamaniac, Creepozoids, Lunch Meat and this low budget slasher from 1986, Evil Laugh, under the name Kim McKamy. Directed by Dominick Brascia, the same man who gave us Hard Rock Nightmare (and who played Joey in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning), the film sees Ms. Gere play a lovely young woman named Connie. She's one of a group of medical students that also includes a cool guy named Johnny (Steven Baio), a snob named Sammy (Tony Griffin), a nerd named Barney (Jerold Pearson), Tina (Jody Gibson), a jock named Mark (Myles O'Brien), Betty (Karyn O'Bryan), who just so happens to be Sammy’s girlfriend. They're to meet up with fellow student Jerry (Gary Hays) at a remote home out in the California hills to help him fix the place up.

    What they don’t know, but we do since we’ve seen the opening scene, is that Jerry has been murdered, his heart ripped out by an unseen assailant, and not only that but the delivery boy (Tom Shell) who dropped off some groceries is also dead. The real estate agent who showed him the place, Mr. Burns (Howard Weiss), split the scene before the carnage started. The masked killer makes an ‘evil laugh’ any time he murders someone.

    Anyway, the group arrives, various people try to have sex and everyone eats a weird dinner that Barney made that includes breaded heart and rocky mountain oysters and then someone starts picking off our characters one at a time. This all ties into the house’s unusual past, or so it seems, with rumors of a maniac named Martin getting everyone, especially Barney, all worked up. He’s seen a lot of horror movies, you see (Fangoria is thanked in the credits and he is seen reading and issue early in the film).

    Highlighted by a ridiculous ‘death by microwave with the door open’ scene and an even more ridiculous cleaning montage set to some goofy eighties pop music, Evil Laugh isn’t meant to be taken especially seriously. There’s plenty of humor spread in throughout the movie, much of which revolves around the various sex and romance subplots, but the kill scenes are pretty solid and some of the gags are pretty amusing (a sex scene where a third party gets involved proves as funny as it is ridiculous). The movie was made on what was obviously a pretty meager budget but the cinematography from Steef Sealy isn’t half bad at all. The effects work is also pretty good – if never super convincing at least bloody enough to make you pay attention.

    As to the cast? Well, Steven Baio (and yes, he is Scott’s brother), who also co-wrote and served as a producer, is alright in the lead. He handles the humor and the horror pretty well and seems to, if nothing else, be having fun with the part. Tony Griffin is effectively hate-worthy as the resident snob, while Myles O’Brien is pretty decent as the cocky jock character. Ms. Gere overdoes it a bit when it’s time to scream, but does prove to be the most likeable of the female characters in the movie. She looks great here too. Jody Gibson is fine as airhead Tina, and Karyn O’Bryan also decent enough as Sammy’s equally snobby girlfriend. It’s an odd cast, to be sure, but they’re generally pretty entertaining to watch.

    Evil Laugh – Blu-ray Review:

    Evil Laugh arrives on a 50GB region A Blu-ray disc with the feature presented in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.33.1 taken and using 27GBs of space. Presented “newly scanned and remastered in 2k from 16mm vault elements.” A disclaimer precedes the film noting that the only known film elements available were a heavily damaged 16mm version of the original cut and that the additional gore from the reshoots that were done for the movie had to be sourced from a video master. As such, there are dips in quality noticeable at times, but they aren’t especially distracting. Print damage is fairly common and detail doesn’t rise to the levels that pre-print elements could have provided but this still looks considerably better than the old Program Power DVD edition from 2003. There’s a fair amount of depth and texture here and colors generally look pretty strong. The image is free of compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction, retaining plenty of natural film grain.

    The only audio option for the feature is an English language 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 track with optional English subtitle options provided. This isn’t the most robust track you’re ever going to hear but for the most part its fine. There are a few spots where dialogue is a little muffled but for the most part the track is clean and properly balanced.

    Extras start off with a commentary track with the Justin, Eric, Nathan and Joseph from The Hysteria Continues! podcast that notes its status as a pre-Scream meta slasher film, discusses how the participants came to see the movie for the first time, some of the film's stranger plot points, notes on the different cast and crew members that worked on the film and background info on their respective careers (including Ashlyn Gere), the way that the movie was marketed upon release, where reshoots were added, the murder set pieces, details on the production's history, the odd comedy angles inserted into the storyline, the mansion location and the use of a McGuffin in the film, stories from the shoot, Steven Baio's work on the picture and quite a bit more. It is, like most of their tracks, very conversational in nature and a nice mix of trivia and analysis.

    Aside from that, the disc also includes a documentary called The Joy Of Laughter: Making Evil Laugh which runs seventy-six minutes and is made up of interviews with actor/co-writer/co-producer Steven Baio, associate producer Joe Barnard, first assistant director Eric Brown, associate producer/actor James Daurio, assistant to the producer/casting/actor Johnny Venokur, makeup effects man David Cohen, actress Karen O'Bryan, actor Jerold Pearson, actor Tom Shell and director of photography/second unit director Steef Sealy. The documentary features some fun clips from some of Cohen's early work and some archival photos as well as discussion of how the various participants came to be involved with the production, what it was like on set, the rushed shooting schedule, the low budget, the shooting order and sequence, what cameras and film stock were used, how the cast and crew pretty much all got along really well, working with Dominick Brascia, the locations that were used and the main house were the vast majority of the movie takes place, shooting without permits, problems that arose during the making of the movie, the difficulties of transporting rice pudding, the humor that is key to the movie's appeal, shooting the different murder set pieces, having to shoot inserts to secure distribution, the film's theatrical and home video releases and how they all feel about the movie these many years later. It's a very thorough and entertaining piece.

    Finishing up the extras on the disc are a still gallery, menus and chapter selection options.

    As far as the packaging goes, Vinegar Syndrome offers this release with a nice limited edition, embossed if purchased directly from their website, as well as with some cool reversible cover sleeve art. Note that the extra from the aforementioned Program Power DVD, now long out of print, which included a commentary and interview with Baio and Brascia, have not been ported over to this release.

    Evil Laugh - The Final Word:

    Evil Laugh might not ever be actually scary but it is entertaining throughout, a strange mix of horror and humor made better by a genuinely odd cast and featuring a couple of creative murder set pieces. Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray does the best it can with inferior elements but offers up a pretty decent high definition presentation overall, and both the commentary and feature length documentary prove worthwhile. Recommended!


    Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Evil Laugh Blu-ray screen caps!

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