Editorials
[Editorial] Why You Should Watch ‘Todd and the Book of Pure Evil’!
Whether or not you’re a fan of big programs like The Walking Dead or American Horror Story, you’ve got to admit that we’re living in a golden age of horror on television. From Ash vs The Evil Dead to Channel Zero, shows are getting away with a lot more gore and disturbing themes these days, even rivaling many studio films. However, with all these small screen juggernauts, it’s easy to miss out on some independent hidden gems.
That’s precisely why I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the simple, perverted genius of a certain short-lived Canadian horror show. This under-appreciated series can be best described as the unholy love child of American Pie and The Evil Dead (with a generous dose of Buffy the Vampire Slayer added in for good measure), though it ultimately gets even weirder.
Todd and the Book of Pure Evil was created by Craig David Wallace, Charles Picco, and Anthony Leo, based on a homonymous low-budget short film. Premiering in 2010 on the Space Channel, the series was successful enough to warrant a second (and final) season, having amassed a handful of Canadian television awards and a respectable cult following. This resulted in a total of 26 episodes of unexpectedly enjoyable supernatural depravity, heavy metal and High School drama.
The show focuses on Alex House as the titular Todd Smith, a head-banging stoner who’s confronted with a satanic tome known only as the Book of Pure Evil, capable of granting desperate teenage wishes, but always at a gruesome cost. With the help of his one-armed best friend Curtis (played by Bill Turnbull), his feisty crush Jenny (Maggie Castle), and the nerdy Hannah (Melanie Leishman), Todd attempts to banish the book from Crowley High and unravel the prophecy of the Pure Evil One. Of course, insanely entertaining supernatural shenanigans ensue.
Beyond the otherworldly terrors unleashed by the book, the gang is also forced to deal with Atticus Murphy Jr (played by the excellent Chris Leavins), their school guidance counselor and a closeted Satanist hell-bent on capturing the book for himself. The show also features Jason Mewes as Jimmy, the school janitor and Todd’s lovable mentor, always spouting hilarious nuggets of pothead wisdom.
There’s usually a little bit more blood and guts involved.
During these two short seasons, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil somehow managed to present us with lovable characters, satanic intrigue and several homages to classic horror flicks, all miraculously balanced in the span of easily digested 22-minute-long episodes. Having binged the entirety of the series, plus last year’s animated film that serves as a long-awaited conclusion to the second season’s cliffhanger ending, I’m truly baffled as to why this doesn’t have a bigger fan base.
The show’s signature blend of demonic creatures, stoner humor, and teenage angst obviously isn’t for everyone, but I feel like there’s a significant portion of horror fans who are more than willing to put with a dick joke or two in their televised gore (myself included). After all, it seems like the series’ strength lies precisely in its ability to balance rampant gross-outs and questionable humor with genuinely clever writing and relatable characters.
Of course, the show doesn’t always succeed in its attempts at comedy, and much of the main plot feels derivative, but even the clichés are presented from a fresh perspective, with the writing always feeling just self-aware enough to overcome most of these flaws. And, while the series thrives on parodies of everything from Phantom of the Opera to traditional After School Specials, there’s always a clever (albeit usually horrific) twist that make these episodes stand out.
Hell, the musical episodes were some of my favorites, as the creative direction and writing shined despite a limited budget and obvious time constraints. I also particularly loved how the characters eventually reference the fact that the show’s Illuminati-like Satanists aren’t doing a very good job of representing real-world Satanism, which is decidedly less nefarious.
Maybe it’s an inherent urge to always root for the underdog, but I find it inspiring to see a low-budget production surpass its financial limitations through sheer tenacity and wit. Admittedly, the show’s effects and set design aren’t amazing, but everything is presented so earnestly that it ends up helping the series feel more like the B-movies it’s trying to emulate, instead of detracting from the experience.
All of this translates nicely into Todd and the Book of Pure Evil: The End of the End, an animated film that serves as a kind of pseudo-third-season to the show. The movie combines what could have been four stand-alone episodes into a feature-length conclusion to the story, with the animation allowing writers to focus on some of the more outlandish elements of the plot without worrying about the effects budget. It serves as a satisfying series finale, with hysterical musical numbers and the humorous culmination of several character arcs, but the awkward structure makes it slightly less enjoyable as a standalone film.
It’s still one hell of a good time!
Overall, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is consistently entertaining, even when it stumbles with some occasional awkward writing and limited production value. While the series cleverly deconstructed genre tropes in what could have been a fairly standard high school horror story, the likable characters and memorable banter amongst the gang are easily the most compelling reasons to revisit this criminally underrated show.
Had it gone on for a few more seasons, Todd could have become a worthy successor to Buffy, having the main cast grow up as they fought evil, perhaps even beyond high school. Nevertheless, the few episodes that we got have a certain raunchy charm that’s present in very few horror shows these days. It may not have been the best of its kind, and the humor can be downright stupid at times, but clever storytelling and a compelling cast make this a short-but-sweet horror comedy that doesn’t overstay its welcome. So, why not give the show, and its animated conclusion, a chance at fighting evil (with mixed results)?
Written and Directed by Stevan Mena on a budget of around $200,000, Malevolence was only released in ten theaters after it was purchased by Anchor Bay and released direct-to-DVD like so many other indie horrors. This one has many of the same pratfalls as its bargain bin brethren, which have probably helped to keep it hidden all these years. But it also has some unforgettable moments that will make horror fans (especially fans of the original Halloween) smile and point at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Malevolence is the story of a silent and masked killer told through the lens of a group of bank robbers hiding out after a score. The bank robbery is only experienced audibly from the outside of the bank, but whether the film has the budgetary means to handle this portion well or not, the idea of mixing a bank robbery tale into a masked slasher movie is a strong one.
Of course, the bank robbery goes wrong and the crew is split up. Once the table is fully set, we have three bank robbers, an innocent mom and her young daughter as hostages, and a masked man lurking in the shadows who looks like a mix between baghead Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 and the killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Let the slashing begin.
Many films have tried to recreate the aesthetic notes of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween, and at its best Malevolence is the equivalent of a shockingly good cover song.
Though the acting and script are at times lacking, the direction, score, and cinematography come together for little moments of old-school slasher goodness that will send tingles up your spine. It’s no Halloween, to be clear, but it does Halloween reasonably proud. The nighttime shots come lit with the same blue lighting and the musical notes of the score pop off at such specific moments, fans might find themselves laughing out loud at the absurdity of how hard the homages hit. When the killer jumps into frame, accompanied by the aforementioned musical notes, he does so sharply and with the same slow intensity as Michael Myers. Other films in the subgenre (and even a few in the Halloween franchise) will tell you this isn’t an easy thing to duplicate.
The production and costume designs of Malevolence hint at love letters to other classic horror films as well. The country location not only provides for an opening Halloween IV fans will appreciate but the abandoned meat plant and the furnishings inside make for some great callbacks to 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of this is buoyed and accentuated by cinematography that you rarely see in today’s low-budget films. The film is shot on 35mm film by A&E documentary filmmaker Tsuyoshi Kimono, who gives Malevolence an old-school, grainy, 1970s aesthetic that feels completely natural and not like a cheap gimmick.
Malevolence is a movie that no doubt has some glaring imperfections but it is also a movie that is peppered with moments of potential. There’s a reason they made a follow-up prequel titled Malevolence 2: Bereavement years later (and another after that) that starred both Michael Biehn and Alexandra Daddario! That film tells the origin story of our baghead, Martin Bristol. Something the first film touches on a little bit, at least enough to give you the gist of what happened here. Long story short, a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a serial killer and for years forced to watch him hunt, torture, and kill his victims. Which brings me to another fascinating aspect of Malevolence. The ending. SPOILER WARNING.
After the mother and child are saved from the killer, our slasher is gone, his bloody mask left on the floor. The camera pans around different areas of the town, showing all the places he may be lurking. If you’re down with the fact that it’s pretty obvious this is all an intentional love letter and not a bad rip-off, it’s pretty fun. Where Malevolence makes its own mark is in the true crime moments to follow. Law enforcement officers pull up to the plant and uncover a multitude of horrors. They find the notebooks of the original killer, which explain that he kidnapped the boy, taught him how to hunt, and was now being hunted by him. This also happened to be his final entry. We discover a hauntingly long line of bodies covered in white sheets: the bodies of the many missing persons the town had for years been searching for. And there are a whole lot of them. This moment really adds a cool layer of serial killer creepiness to the film.
Ultimately, Malevolence is a low-budget movie with some obvious deficiencies on full display. Enough of them that I can imagine many viewers giving up on the film before they get to what makes it so special, which probably explains how it has gone so far under the radar all these years. But the film is a wonderful ode to slashers that have come before it and still finds a way to bring an originality of its own by tying a bank robbery story into a slasher affair. Give Malevolence a chance the next time you’re in the mood for a nice little old school slasher movie.
Malevolence is now streaming on Tubi and Peacock.
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