Movies
Evil: In the Time of Heroes
“Noussias could have literally edited out all of Billy Zane’s scenes, and all of the flashbacks, and delivered a way above par zombie feature. The scope is massive, the kills are brutal and bloody, and most of all, it’s entertaining. Great DVD rental.”
Coming all the way from Greece is Yorgos Noussias’ zombie movie that is 50% zombie awesome and 50% Billy Zane retarded. Evil: In the Time of Heroes is the perfect title because it accurately describes the film: “Evil”, as in the zombie outbreak and all of the bloody goodness that ensures, and “In the Time of Heroes,” as in Billy Zane, the fractured period piece and idiotic mythology mixed in. It’s literally insane (and frustrating) thinking about this movie as the zombie segments are off-the-charts fantastic, while all of the historical mythos mixed in boring, nonsensical and goddamn boring.
The good: Zombies; they look fantastic, especially considering how many there are. Blood; headshots, head stomps, decapitations, throats slashes, and even arenas left with hundreds of dead bodies bleeding out. Humor; “The Cook” puts a “shoe cap” on in order to keep his shoes clean while he stomps a zombie’s head in. Another scene follows the group of survivors as they hole up in an internet café. Inside they discover two teens hiding upstairs – but as it turns out, they’ve been playing World of Warcraft for three days straight, and have no idea a zombie outbreak has even occurred.
The bad: Everything Billy Zane; one scene even features a bizarre transition where a black and white Billy Zane head spins across the screen for an entire minute. I’m not kidding – I wish I were. All of the flash backs to when this outbreak occurred are soulless and boring. They tell the exact same story as present day, only without any character development or interesting sequences.
Noussias could have literally edited out all of Billy Zane’s scenes, and all of the flashbacks, and delivered a way above par zombie feature. The scope is massive, the kills are brutal and bloody, and most of all, it’s entertaining. Great DVD rental.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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