“There’s something seriously fucked up goin’ on here. Read the writing on the wall!”
Alex (Jen Houston) and Ben (Charley Tucker) find their dream apartment in New York’s East Village (aka Evil). It doesn’t matter if it’s cursed if the rent is cheap and it has a kitchen, right? But when the painful situation of being roommates with murderous ghosts becomes too much for them, they must enlist the help of friends to escape the evil of their sublet.
With eVil sublet, Allan Piper delivers an R-rated, scary, funny, bloody and sexy film that will appeal to all major audiences. In short, a film like few others are produced in America.
A fine blend of horror and comedy
Horror films often use comedy to counterbalance scary moments, or to heighten the effect of fear when it occurs. But at times, some creators go a step further to truly blend horror and comedy in symbiosis.
Titles that come to mind include Evil Dead 2 and 3, and Shaun of the Dead. For the curious, I invite you to watch the series Horror’s greatest. There’s an episode devoted to cinema that mixes horror and comedy.
In eVil sublet, you’ll find this mix quite effectively. We might have hoped for a few more scary moments, as these are mainly used when we see horrific faces appear on screen. The effect is effective, but 1 or 2 more truly frightening sequences would have taken this film to another level.
As for the comedy, it makes you laugh out loud. At times, caricature is used. At times, puns are used. At other times, it’s the situations that bring the laughter. We shouldn’t forget to mention the director’s more subtle moments. I’m thinking, for example, of the scene in which the couple sleep in the same bed. The man wraps his left arm around his wife, spooning her to sleep. But when Ben turns around, the arm doesn’t move. It takes a few seconds to realize what’s happening. So, without being really frightening, this sequence brings a nice reaction from the viewer.
Not afraid to cross the line
Before I get into what are really boundary crossings, I’d like to look at those little things that should be normal in a film, but are rarely seen. eVil Sublet makes a mockery of the US housing crisis, banking, political divisions, sexual politics and the pharmaceutical industry. But it’s its on-screen representation that sets it apart. The film celebrates groups historically under-represented on screen. Four of the five lead roles are LGBTQ+ characters played by LGBTQ+ actors. It thus joins an emerging movement led by projects such as Suitable Flesh, Yellowjackets and Everything Everywhere All At Once, to represent women aged 40-50+ as heroic, sexy powerhouses.
Alex (Jen Houston) finding the perfect sublet
Secondly, he doesn’t shy away from showing completely naked bodies on screen, both female (which is already rare) and male (which is almost non-existent). This is not a way of sexualizing the characters, on the contrary. The nudity simply seems natural. A body is a body.
Allan Piper doesn’t seem to hold back, and this transpires in the film, which is frankly enjoyable. Could he afford this freedom because his film was partly crowdfunded?
A little more…
eVil Sublet was financed in part through a crowdfunding campaign that involved transforming the faces of donors into ghosts in the shadows and nooks and crannies of the apartment. Over 200 ghostly faces are hidden throughout the movie. Hidden, but visible. Clearly, the donors were able to find themselves in the film.
I also think that one of the things that makes eVil Sublet such a good experience is that it doesn’t take itself for what it isn’t. Without redefining the genre or trying to show how intelligent it can be, this film manages to entertain and even exaggerate, without falling into the ridiculous.
