In Evil Things, Leo (Ryan Maslyn) and his friends Miriam (Elyssa Mersdorf), Mark (Morgan Hooper), Cassy (Laurel Casillo), and Tanya (Torrey Weiss) take a road-trip from New York City to a Miriam’s aunt’s house in the country. Leo has just gotten a new HD camera and insists on videoing the whole trip. They traverse the snowy roads which are made even more treacherous by a dark van which appears to be pursuing them. After stopping to eat, and seeing the van again, they finally make it to the safety of the house. They celebrate Miriam’s birthday and then head off to bed. The next day, they explore the area. However, the fun times come to an end when they realize that their experiences with the van aren’t over.

Evil Things takes the age-old idea of a group of youngsters going into the woods and finding trouble and attempts to add a new element to it. (Why can’t these people ever just stay home?) In fact, the movie takes this familiar idea and piles as many elements on it as possible. First, we have the mysterious van pursuing the car (how many times have we seen that in a movie?). Once the group finally gets to the house, after being lost several times, the power is out. Why is this happening? The next day, they get lost in the woods. Why didn’t anyone mark their path through the snowy forest? Then, bad things start happening at the house.

While watching Evil Things one can’t help but think that Writer/Director Dominic Perez is both making it up as he goes along and trying everything that he can to pad the movie’s running time. The movie desperately tries different things, but nothing works. In the end, the movie is exactly what it is -- we are watching a group of people who are strangers to us who have videotaped their vacation. And we watch them do one stupid and boring thing after another. The last 15 minutes tries to infuse some action into the movie, but even then, it’s difficult to discern exactly what is happening. The movie leaves us in the dark (literally), and when the revelation of what has been occurring comes, it’s disappointing to say the least. The movie hopes that its simplicity will be chilling, but it’s not.

For all of its flaws and tedium, Evil Things does bring one new thing to the table. (Spoiler Alert: I don’t want to give too much away, but discussing this will shed some light on the ending.) During the third act, we suddenly realize that we are no longer watching Leo’s footage. The end product of Evil Things incorporates footage from Leo’s camera, as well as another. Yes, in movies like The Blair Witch Project and [REC 2], we saw footage from two different cameras, but we knew what we were seeing, here, it’s somewhat of a surprise, and thus, novel. Of course, the movie also tries to follow this same logic to explain why there’s music in the movie, but this doesn’t work. Even when we understand why there’s music, it’s decidedly out of place in a found footage movie. (End Spoiler Alert)

Speaking of giving things away, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s expectations about the film, but despite what the title and the trailer imply, there is nothing supernatural happening here. As a low-budget, independent production, Evil Things can’t help that it’s a low-rent affair. However, it didn’t have to play as one. Just because a character decides to video everything that happens, doesn’t mean that we want to see it. Not much happens in Evil Things and when it does, we can’t help but ask, “’Why doesn’t he put the camera down?”

Evil Things must have had a tired arm when it was all over on DVD courtesy of Inception Media Group. The movie has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material, save for the intended rough cuts. Shot on HD video, the exterior daytime scenes are crystal clear and very detailed. The night time scenes are a tad dark at times, as the light is often from flashlights. There is very limited artifacting here. The DVD offers a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track which provides clear dialogue and sound effects. Our assumption, as this is “found footage”, is that the audio was recorded through the single mic on the camera. Thus, the fact that much of the sound comes from the front channel isn’t surprising. However, there are some scattered stereo effects and two scenes (the gas station and the waterfall) provide notable surround sound effects.

The Evil Things DVD contains three extras. "Friends and Family" (7 minutes) is additional footage which shows those who knew the kids asking for help in the search. These are on-camera interviews which actually features some OK acting. "Stalking 101" (6 minutes) is more "found footage" of woman being followed through the city to her home. This carries a "label" which makes it a companion piece to the movie. The final extra is the TRAILER for Evil Things which implies that something supernatural happens in the movie...and also features the title in the same font as the Resident Evil movies.