Evil (2003)
Directed by Mikael Håfström
Stockholm, in the 1950s. Erik is expelled from the local school for getting into one brawl too many. To protect Erik from his violent stepfather’s reaction to his expulsion, Erik's mother arranges for Erik to spend a year at Stjärnsberg Boarding School, the only school willing to accept him. This is Erik's last chance to graduate to Upper School and he promises his mother, for his and her sake, to do all he can to stay out of trouble.
4 connections found
View:
4 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Evil to
Though packaged in the easily-marketable sci-fi/thriller genre, Chronicle is not so far removed from such works of gravitas as Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) or Mikael Hafström’s Evil (2003).
He's called 'piggy,' punched, finds his pants in the urinal after gym class (one wonders how rife this problem is in Sweden, given the similar subject matter of 2004 Foreign Language nominee "Evil").
Director Mikael Håfström ("Evil," "1408") applies more gloss than Stallone's cheesier "Expendables" franchise while production designer Barry Chusid ("Source Code") serves up a high tech prison facility that's like a futuristic nod to Stallone's honeycombed "Demolition Man" deep freeze.
Director Mikael Håfström has given us a number of uneven horror/psychological thrillers in the past: "Evil," "Derailed," and "1408."
Though director Mikael Håfström (Evil, Derailed , 1408 ) does cook up at least one chillingly spooky sequence full of shadows and sounds, his main focus here is on the bland Michael (Colin O'Donoghue), whose character arc isn't much of an arc: he doesn't believe and then he does.