By Geno McGahee
Claude Akins is a great actor and gives his last performance that was a little bit less than chilling in WHERE EVIL LIVES, an anthology from 1991. Akins plays “Jack Devlin” a caretaker of the “Spencer House,” that is obviously digging a grave from the get go, but the potential buyer of the house doesn’t seem to notice and just sits down and listens to the stories that Devlin has to offer.
We begin with “Hubert’s Homecoming,” which surrounds Hubert (Peter Zaff), a nerd that went on a killing spree in the 1960s. The most amusing thing about this tale was the fact that they didn’t get an actor that looked like Zaff to play the young Hubert. They put a wig on Zaff…a 60 year old man, and tried to pass him off as a teenager. It was a riot.
Hubert gets locked up but is released and quickly returns to the Hubert home and begins mocking the dead, but they come back to haunt him. It’s not a complex tale, but it was amusing mostly due to the overacting and absurdity of Zaff.
The next tale “Midnight Date,” surrounds a young girl with visions. The tale is nearly completely narrated, which took me right out of the movie, and it moved along at a snail’s pace. There is a female vampire that uses her sexuality to her advantage, turning the young girl’s brother into a vampire, but this tale failed to be interesting.
The final tale “Saved by the Spell,” a tale about a serial killer that steals organs and sells them to an evil doctor. Only a psychic can stop this madman. This movie takes the cake as the worst of the bunch. It’s just a mess. The story is all over the place and I got quickly bored with it.
WHERE EVIL LIVES is not a good movie. The first tale was fun and made me think that the movie might have a chance to be a memorable anthology, but it quickly nosedived and was very tough to get through. It was really disappointing. I can’t recommend it.
Rating: 3/10 – One out of Three is Bad
