“EVIL BREED: THE LEGEND OF SAMHAIN” (2003)

Bobbie Phillips, Ginger Lynn Allen, Jenna Jameson & Richard Grieco
Written & Directed by Christian Viel

Poll Staffle Rating: *

As a rule, if it takes a long time for a horror movie to get released, it’s probably because the film sucks. The genre has a built in audience because horror fans will watch just about anything. Not to mention the good box office revenues these movies have been doing the past few years. So when the film “Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain” finally got a straight-to-DVD release three years after it was completed, I should have known not to expect much.

I first heard of this film about six years ago. It was then called just “Samhain.” At the time, I read Mark Borchardt of “American Movie” was supposed to be in it with a bunch of porn stars and Richard Greico. I was sold. “This is going to be a masterpiece,” I thought. It was projected to get an October 2002 release, but I don’t know what the hell happened. When I saw it was hitting DVD with a new title, I got pumped up to finally see it. Then I read Borchardt wasn’t in it. It still starred a bunch of porn stars and Richard Greico, so I still had a small glimmer of hope for a fun watch.

This is a disaster. The main problem is the film doesn’t know what it wants to be. It feels like it had six writers or something as opposed to the singular Christian Viel vision it is. At least with the “Scary Movie” films, which have so many “written by” credits that it’s evident the screenplays were written on napkins with crayon, you know what you are in for – an incoherent mess. This script here was at least typed out on a computer and printed for the actors, but “Evil Breed” is all over the place. It’s fine to do that if you can make it work. A movie can be funny, scary, romantic, pornographic, preachy or whatever it wants to be all rolled into one. As long as it is done well.

After a decent opener with Greico and Chasey Lain having sex and getting killed, the film moves extremely slow with nothing happening. We get forty minutes or so of fake scares like people creeping up behind others unexpectedly. We also get a lot of overused Kevin Williams-like “this is a cool horror movie above all others” dialogue with a wink-wink, nudge. To any filmmakers out there, “Scream” was cool, but we are done seeing wannabes. There's also a scene featuring a “Halloween” rip-off on television, which has been done too much as well. The only viewers that will enjoy these things probably still like to listen to “morning zoos” when they are getting up in the morning.

Then the nudity and gore set in. But that’s all we really get. Since I’m not as up to date on my porn actresses as a co-worker of mine, I had trouble knowing which women were b-movie scream queens or x-rated scream queens. But me and my girlfriend found an easy solution: if they strip nude, they’re an adult industry actresses. If they have a love scene that cuts away after the first kiss or they take a bath and bubbles strategically hide their bodies, they’re not. The lead actress Bobbie Phillips was passable as a money-making lady of smut. But it turns out she is legit having starred in the remake of “Carnival of Souls” as well as “Showgirls” and “Red Shoe Diaries 14: Luscious Lola.”

In “Evil Breed,” Phillips plays a history teacher heading a field trip of students to Ireland. Only five students are on the trip with her, instead of an entire class and they stay in some spooky house in a creepy swamp-like area. The locations are perfect for a horror movie. I’m not sure where it was actually filmed, but it wasn’t Ireland because they drove on the right side of the street like us and not on the left.

In the guise of history lessons, there is some decent back story given in the film. The origin of Halloween as well as the cannibalistic Bean family are discussed. Samhain, besides being a band fronted by Glen Danzig, is the Irish word for November and is associated with a festive celebration by ancient Celts and as usual, we stole and bastardized their festival and that’s how we got Halloween. The Beans were a family of 15th century cannibals that supposedly feasted on thousands of people before being caught and executed without a trial in Scotland. Alexander “Sawney” Bean was their leader and he had a clan of 46 children and grand children. The Beans were also the inspiration for “The Hill Have Eyes.” It is said in “Evil Breed” that some believe a member of the Bean family escaped and moved to Ireland. All this back story is extremely interesting and could serve well for a horror movie. I feel it’s just kind of wasted here. The information isn’t presented well, so instead of it coming off like “The Blair Witch Project” or “House of 1,000 Corpses,” it’s more like a boring class field trip.

The porn stars on hand include Ginger Lynn, Chasey Lain, Taylor Hayes and Jenna Jameson. They all usually get naked and instantly killed, except Ginger Lynn who actually turns in a decent performance as an Irish woman named Pandora. Lynn isn’t the only actress that breaks the nudity rule, as Heidi Hawkins of MTV’s “Undressed” takes her clothes off before her death scene. So maybe the whole using nudity to figure out who’s a porn star doesn’t work after all.

For those that can’t get enough of Jenna Jameson, she is on display spread open like you’ve never seen before. I for one feel she is extremely overrated and don’t see her as a big deal at all. She pops up half way through for a 10-second scene of dialogue and returns topless to have her implants removed by the film’s killer. Is it really any big deal to anyone for these triple-x stars to be nude? That’s like you showing up at your job and getting paid for doing half of what you normally do. Instead of going there and doing work, you get a pay check for coming in bathed and fully dressed as you always do. Follow me? And it’s not like you couldn’t see these porn stars unclothed anywhere else. They’re nude more than Peter Griffin. And what is the deal that Jenna Jameson’s characters, no matter what she is in, being named Jenna or a variation? She is Jenny here. Is she the Tony Danza of porn and has to have her characters named as such or she won’t respond when someone says the name?

Probably the worst thing about this movie is the killer or killers. It was actually a bit confusing about how many there were. When the killer shows up, it made me feel like I was watching a stupid Troma movie or something. It looks like a combination of Sloth from “The Goonies,” “The Toxic Avenger” and the demon of poop in “Dogma.” And it’s not just that he’s ugly and laughable. There is a scene where one of the males involved in the field trip has a knife in his hand, gives it to the killer and is stabbed. Another scene involves the “you’re all going to die guy” every bad horror movie has getting his intestines pulled out through his butt. So if you aren’t being disgusted by the death scenes then you are amazed at how idiotic they are.

In the end, “Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain” ends up being a big unidentifiable pile of something that looks like its killer. What a disappointment. I waited how long to see this? I guess I need to lower my expectations. Maybe I should try being more like Otis from “The Devils Rejects.”

“I set my standards pretty low, so I'm never disappointed.” – Otis Driftwood

- CCF, March 2006