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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: September 19th, 2023.
Director: Claudio Castravelli
Cast: Pamela Collyer, Jack Langedijk, Walter Massey, Nanette Workman, Roland Nincheri, Suzanne DeLaurentiis
Year: 1984
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Evil Judgement – Movie Review:
Directed by Claudio Castravelli, who co-wrote the film with Victor Montesano, and released during the early days of the eighties slasher movie boom, Evil Judgement introduces us to a waitress named Janet (Pamela Collyer) who would love little more than to tell her boss to ‘take this job and shove it’ and to make it as a dancer, but that doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards.
After Janet gets into a spat with her douche-bag boyfriend, Dino (Jack Langedijk), she talks to her friend April (Nanette Workman) who convinces her to leave Dino in the dust. There’s only one thing – she needs to be able to support herself. To do this, and with April’s support, she decides to give the world’s oldest profession a try. April’s been doing this for a while and making good money so Janet figures why not. When the two of them are hired to entertain one of April’s regular johns, Janet gets to meet Ron (Walter Massey) for the first time. He’s an older, quirky man who lives by himself in a massive old home, but just as the party is about to get started, the lights go off and someone uses a razorblade to open up first Ron’s throat, and then April’s, leaving Janet as the sole survivor.
When she wakes up in a hospital the next day, she’s questioned by a cop named Detective Armstrong (Roland Nincheri). He simply assumes she’s making it all up, presuming her to be a drug addict, but when more victims show up, murdered in the same way and seemingly with the same weapon, Janet realizes that the cops aren’t going to help here and so reconciles with Dino to try and work with him to stop the killer before they can kill again.
Evil Judgement is a solid slasher, even if it is a bit repetitive and by the numbers. The kill scenes are well done but there’s really no variety here, everyone pretty much dies on the business end of a straight razor, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out ‘whodunnit.’ Still, the production values are pretty decent and the film benefits from a really solid synth-heavy score courtesy of composer Corky Laing.
Performances are decent, if never mind-blowingly awesome. Pamela Collyer is likeable enough as the lead, she makes some bad decisions in the first half of the movie but the story at least sets up reasoning for those decisions and we don’t really wind up holding it against her. Jack Langedijk is pretty good as the scummy boyfriend character while Roland Nincheri is pretty entertaining as the surly cop.
Evil Judgement – Blu-ray Review:
Evil Judgement arrives on a 50GB region A Blu-ray disc with the feature presented in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen “newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm camera negative.” Picture quality is really nice. The image always looks like a proper film transfer and we get nice detail and color reproduction. There’s really very little print damage here at all and strong detail and depth are noticeable throughout, even in the movie’s darker scenes, of which there are a lot, some dimly lit, show good shadow detail. There are no problems to note with any compression issues, edge enhancement or noise reduction related problems.
The only audio option for the feature is an English language 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track with optional English and English SDH subtitle options provided. Audio quality is solid. There are no problems with any hiss, distortion of sibilance and the track is properly balanced throughout. The awesome synth score sounds quite strong and the sound effects used throughout the movie are appropriately punchy, without ever burying the performers in the mix.
Extras start off with a commentary track Commentary track with director/producer/co-writer Claudio Castravelli, production manager/associate producer Pietro L. Serapiglia and co-writer Victor Montesano that goes over pretty much everything you’d expect it to – where the idea for the movie came from, the locations, casting the movie, distribution, what it was like on set, some of the effects work and more. A second commentary track is also included, this one with The Hysteria Continues! which is also pretty solid, a mix of critical analysis, trivia about the cast and crew, how they each came to discover the film and their thoughts on what works and what doesn’t.
There are also a few new featurettes here, starting with the eighteen minute The Executioner, which interviews director/producer/co-writer Claudio Castravelli. This covers a lot of the same ground as the commentary but it’s more concise, covering his background, how he came to make this movie and some of the people he worked with on the project. Getting It Done is an eight minute interview with production manager/associate producer Pietro L. Serapiglia who talks about how he came to be involved with Evil Judgement and what he was responsible for, while It's About Vibes spends seventeen minutes with composer Corky Laing who talks about his background, how he was brought on board and what was involved with creating the film’s score. The last featurette is Canadian Giallo, a twenty-one minute discussion with writer and filmmaker Caelum Vatnsdal on Evil Judgment and how Italian giallo pictures of the seventies worked their way into influencing Canadian slasher, horror and exploitation films.
As far as the packaging goes, Vinegar Syndrome offers this release with a nice embossed slipcover limited to 6,000 pieces and designed by Robert Sammelin if purchased directly from their website, as well as with some cool reversible cover sleeve art.
Evil Judgement - The Final Word:
Evil Judgement is a pretty decent slasher, even if it does next to nothing to differentiate itself from other, similar horror films. Some decent kill scenes and a few oddball moments help to make up for the fact that the movie is fairly repetitive. The Blu-ray edition from Vinegar Syndrome, however, looks gorgeous and sounds very good – on top of that, it offers up a nice array of extra features. Recommended to slasher fans.
