Carson Mell supersedes the haunted house genre with "Another Evil"
A haunted house story always seems to have the same elements. There’s the initial contact—moving items, rearranged furniture, bumps in the night, etc. There’s the escalation—true hauntings happen here, with ghostly attacks, jump scares, visions of evil in the dark. There’s the investigation—it always seems that paranormal investigators are just a phone call away and they always find the root of the problem immediately. Then, there’s the exorcism, where special effects are ratcheted up and the film climaxes in a terrifying ghost encounter.
We love stories that follow a familiar pattern and ghost stories are no different. It takes a talented writer to take these elements and shape them into something new yet familiar, a story that appeals to fans of the genre in a way that supersedes the pattern and creates something special.
Another Evil is a twist on this common tale, one that is surprisingly funny and clever. Written and directed by Carson Mell, known for his writing on HBO’s Silicon Valley and his own animated series Tarantula, Another Evil is a film for anyone that loves a good ghost story, but wishes that they were a little funnier.
Dan (Steve Zissis) is an artist in L.A. who made his name and fortune painting black dots on backed by a variety of colors. His dot paintings have earned him enough money to own a cabin in the mountains away from the city, where he does most of his work and his family spends their weekends. To his great surprise, Dan discovers that his vacation home is inhabited by the bloody and unsettling ghosts of an older couple.
Naturally, as these stories go, he and his wife Mary seek the services of a paranormal investigator named Joey Lee (Dan Bakkedahl). Joey informs them that the ghosts they have are a harmless natural phenomenon, not unlike the aurora borealis. The scary encounters were just the ghosts trying to establish contact in a nonthreatening way.
Dan still feels threatened. After talking to a business partner, Dan is given another name: Os (Mark Proksh), a self-described “industrial grade” demon hunter who does not see the ghosts are harmless, but a very real threat and an encroachment on the territory of the living. Dan invites Os up to the house for the week where they settle for a long ghost busting session.
Before the screening of Another Evil at the Chattanooga Film Festival, the film was described as What About Bob with ghosts. This feels pretty accurate. Os is clearly not playing with a full deck, largely due to his barely functional alcoholism and recent divorce (his wife couldn’t take one more cat in the house). He has long winded tales of his past, one of which is a particularly disturbing tale of the time he was seduced by the devil.
Over the course of the film, Os confesses that he doesn’t ever know if what he is doing will work, lending credence to the idea that even in a universe where ghosts exist, ghost busting is still, to borrow a term from a Tennessee legislator, hogwash. It’s interesting to see a ghost story that focuses on inept experts on the supernatural, particularly one with such distressing habits.
Despite its comic tone, Another Evil still manages to scare the audience, albeit in a way that has nothing to do with the supernatural. The writing resisted the temptation to make Os seem over-the-top crazy. He’s mostly endearing despite his apparent neediness. This characterization makes the film that much more terrifying when it reaches its conclusion.
Another Evil has a release date of May 5th, but still needs to find a home before it can be distributed. It certainly deserves one. There is without a doubt an audience for this type of film, whether it’s a wide release or an on-demand gem to be discovered late at night.
Its showing at the CFF was smaller than it deserved—too much competition to stand out in such a stacked event. But for those that saw it, Another Evil was no doubt a highlight of the weekend. Films like it are the reason Chattanooga needs a film festival. There’s simply nowhere else around to see a film this good.