Necessary Evil

This film has an opening that manages to be one of the most unoriginal and yet bizarre I've ever seen. The predictable, a group of mercenaries in a ancient religious site recovering an artifact: the bizarre, they've taken a belly dancer with them - yep, in full belly dancing |regalia. Her presence is never explained as the film very quickly skips forward 16 years and we see the results of the first generation of experiments the device has been used for.

Necessary Evil is the embodiment of B-Movie sf horror. The plot is fairly predictable - secret government project, mad scientist, black-ops mash-up, yeah, yeah, yeah. Been there seen that - fast-forwarded through a lot of them. Thrown into the mix is a college journalism student and paranoid outsider cop who both believe something sinister is happening at the Institute. (Why is it always people who are not likely to be believed who are onto the truth?)

Lance Henriksen plays Dr. Fibrian, the head of the Edgewater Psychiatric Institute and chief bad-guy mad scientist. He does an okay job, but you feel he's pretty much sleepwalking his way to the paycheck. Danny Trejo plays viscous merc no.1 and, again, plays his part well enough. The real problem is the plot.

It really isn't up to scratch. For one thing the majority of the exposition coming in Henriksen voiceovers serves to slow down the film rather than imbuing it with an inside, noir vibe. Add the paucity of effects and the whole thing feels slow. It's a shame for, despite the been-there, done-that premise there could have been a very watchable B-Movie in this. It just isn't this.

Page updated 7 March, 2011