Michael_Elliott Evil Ed (1995) ** (out of 4) Ed (Johan Rudebeck) is a film editor who gets a promotion to the gore and horror department. The usually normal Ed begins editing a violent horror series and before long he is being haunted by strange visions, which turn him into a killer.This Swedish horror film apparently has a very big cult following and it's rather easy to see why. Sometimes you watch a movie that you respect more than you actually enjoy and that's what EVIL ED was to me. There's no question that the filmmakers had a special talent and the film they wanted to make certainly got on the screen. This here was obviously a love letter to all things dealing with horror movies and there are a couple interesting and good ideas scattered throughout the picture.With that said, I just didn't really find it to be entertaining. Obviously you're appeal of the main character will help determine your feelings on the picture but I just had a really hard time connecting to anything in the movie. It was like I was watching something good but it just didn't interest me to invest in it. I thought Rudebeck's performance was quite good in the lead. If you're looking for gore then there's plenty of that here. The blood-soaked special effects is what people love and there's no question that they are good.The film is a spoof of the slasher genre but it falls well short of something like DEAD ALIVE. This film here has the gore and the spoof down right but in the end it just didn't entertainment all that much.

Scott LeBrun Eddie Tor Swenson (Johan Rudebeck) is a mild mannered film technician who is one day transferred to the Splatter and Gore Department at his company. His new job is to go through the MILES of gore footage assembled for a slasher series called "Loose Limbs", and edit it for distribution. Within a short time, the task has driven him insane and made him murderous. As Eddie suffers various hallucinations, one of his would be victims (Per Lofberg) realizes that he will have to play the hero role.This viewer went into this one totally blind, not sure what to expect. What he got was basically what the ad copy asserted: an effectively gory love letter to some of the nastiest horror films of the 1980s and early 1990s. "The Evil Dead", "Re-Animator", Peter Jacksons' early output, etc. Horror fans are certain to be delighted, at least for a while. The movie has a refreshingly unpredictable quality (for the most part), and it does mix a healthy amount of surrealism into its outrageousness. After a while, though, it does lose a little steam, with the best material (like a WTF sequence with a hungry imp in a refrigerator) over and done with. In true slasher fashion, Eddie becomes a one man wrecking crew, making mincemeat out of the majority of the people who would foil him.The makeup effects are quite fun. While it's never as truly over the top splattery as, say, Jacksons' "Braindead", it dishes out some choice brutality. On his way to becoming the hero, Lofberg takes more than his fair share of punishment.Some of the performances are pretty straight-faced, if the characters call for it, but the ones who have the most fun are the ones who go the broadest. Rudebeck looks like he's having a ball as a horror-comedy heavy. And there's a respectable bevy of very sexy female cast members.Pretty funny, overall, if never quite uproarious.Director Anders Jacobsson plays a car driver; American genre star Bill Moseley is billed as giving a special guest star vocal performance.Seven out of 10.

Leofwine_draca An interesting look into the world of the BBFC? A study of James Ferman's daily life? No such luck. However, EVIL ED remains strangely topical, especially for UK viewers who will no doubt find themselves intrigued by the story of a censor who is driven insane by the films he views.Films like this make me wonder about the future of horror. I mean, where is it going? Jaded audiences are so used to seeing gore effects in mainstream movies today that another pint of blood won't hurt, or another, or another. It seems to me that nothing is ever going to be remotely scary anymore.EVIL ED is a perfect example of this. Whereas 10 years earlier we laughed at an eyeball flying into an open mouth, we're now supposed to laugh at someone getting repeatedly punched in the face and bleeding heavily from the beating. There is a violence overload in this film. To distinguish it from all of the other horror films coming out these days, this one is actually foreign, a Swedish movie.It's got a simple plot, which is little more than an excuse for lots of bad overacting, nudity, and gore. The acting ranges from atrocious to pretty average, at least everyone realises they're in a comedy film here. The actor playing Sam Campbell (get it?) is fairly efficient, while the EVIL ED character isn't bad, especially as he slowly becomes insane (shown by his hair getting wilder, and getting covered in more and more blood). The horror takes a back seat to the comedy, and it's what you would expect from a foreign film of this type (i.e. pretty spaced out humour, ranging from extremely dark to extremely childish in form). There's a lot of gore in the film to enjoy, and which keeps you watching, but it's very rubbery, much like the gore in BRAINDEAD (no doubt an inspiration). It's mildly entertaining, if not exactly intellectual.Apart from that, watch out for plot discrepancies and lots of general silliness which may or may not be to your liking. The makers of this film were obviously big horror fans, as loads of references to the EVIL DEAD series have been included, as well as 'homages' to stuff like GREMLINS which gets annoying after a while (where's the originality these days?). Yep, I just knew they would have a camera rushing through murky corridors, a la Mr Raimi. EVIL ED is nothing special but it does pass the time if you're VERY desperate or if you want to take a look at foreign cinema.

m0rg16 I didn't really rent this movie expecting a intellectual, philosophical movie. I expected a funny, gory splatter film, and I got just what I asked for.Edward works for some television studio and cuts out violent stuff from movies and such. That's his job. But when he gets to watch an entire film series of "Loose Limbs" and cut out blood and gore. But after awhile he can't handle it anymore and simply goes insane. He starts to see visions of monsters and persons from the films, and in his dreams a bandaged figure tells him to start killing off the "unpure". It just so happens that everyone seems to be unpure. After this Ed goes after several persons in his murderous rampage, including his wife, his daughter, a delivery guy, two thieves and a SWAT team.The film can be pretty damn gory at times, yet hilarious beyond boundries. Like the doctor scene! Holy crap, that scene is so damn hilarious its just... Hilarious! Its sick too, by the way.Edwards boss (Samuel Campbell is his name, a homage to Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi) is also pretty funny with some funny lines. But Edward is the one with the real one-liners! THey are truly unforgivable! Anyway, I cannot praise this hilarious movie enough. It gets 8 out of 10 from me!