I think it's fair to say that Greece is hardly renowned for its horror movie output (to date I have only seen one other scary film from this country—Nico Mastorakis' infamous 'video nasty' Island of Death), but having just enjoyed zombie romp 'To Kako' (AKA Evil), I reckon that the Greeks should spend less time smashing plates and more time smashing skulls, 'cos they're actually pretty good at it!Director Yorgos Noussias begins his film with the discovery of an enormous cavern on the outskirts of Athens, within which lurks an evil force that is capable of transforming people into flesh-craving zombies. After initially possessing three construction workers who investigate the cavern, the force spreads rapidly throughout the city leaving only a small group of survivors—buxom teenager Jenny, her sexy neighbour, a randy taxi driver, a soldier, and a football fan—desperately searching for a way out of their predicament.Whilst this might not be the most imaginative of plots, Noussias's superb handling of his material more than makes up for the lack of originality in narrative: genuinely atmospheric scenes of horror are expertly combined with bloody moments of knockabout splat-stick comedy to make this a thoroughly entertaining 83 minutes of scares, OTT gore and laughs. And for a film with such a small budget, this film looks absolutely fabulous, with great cinematography (the shots of the deserted city are particularly cool), snazzy editing (the MTV stylings are a little over-done, perhaps, but it's still technically impressive stuff), and loads of amazing special effects (both traditional and digital).The blurb on the DVD packaging describes the film as 'a rapid-fire series of over-the-top-gross-out gags and gore' but I feel that this description does not really do the film justice. Yes, 'To Kako' offers gore-hounds a smörgåsbord of splatterific effects and bad-taste humour—crushed heads, decapitations, eviscerations, and juicy impalements—but there is more to Noussias' movie than just a mindless comedy gore-fest: in addition to making viewers laugh, the director also manages to deliver carefully constructed scenes of tension and excitement, allows his viewers to care about his characters before he has them pulled apart and eaten, and presents an excellent downbeat ending that sees the last four survivors facing insurmountable odds as the undead close in for the kill, thus qualifying 'To Kako' as a bona fide horror experience.

We all hate the Hollywood remakes of foreign movies, like {REC) / Quarantine, Ju-on / The Grudge, Ringu / Ring, Nattevagten / Nightwatch etc... But where's the Hollywood remake when you need one?! Because To Kako, or Evil, is exactly the kind of movie that might have been good given more money, better script based on the original one, (better) actors and so on. The original script is very well-intended, the author really likes zombie movies, but his literary vein endures only for the first half of the film; after that, it seems the writer couldn't wait for the film to end so he threw in some fast jokes and zombie shooting and that was that. There are some good tricks, some good ideas, few very good scenes, the fight looks bad but at least they tried to think, if not choreograph, every move. The movie makers also obey the rules, even the rule that says every rule must be broken. For example, Yorgos Noussias' zombies don't die exclusively by brain destroying, but can also be killed by stabbing in the chest – at least if the scene (one of the zombie that was put to sleep in the restaurant scene) was intentional. Of course, To Kako is a film exclusively for die hard zombie fans (pun pretty much intended). Only we can watch such cheap productions, achingly bad acting, stupid character motivations, dialogs ripped off from another 100 movies, artificial conflicts, fake fight scenes, horribly lighting, goofs (like the blood spurting out from a zombie cut in two – but spurting out and upwards from the low half – as the heart was of course in the upper half!), confusing editing at times... and I won't continue the list, because, despite all those shortcomings, I still liked the movie. To Kako is pretty much a kind of The Elephant Man (but the character, not the film): inside there's a great person, but you hate the way he looks. It's hard to look at him, but you ignore his appearance because you know down there there's good soul. As for the horror factor, yes, it exists, although achieved more by editing (the sudden bursts of the zombies…) and sound, which is the easy way to do it. Nevertheless, this film had one thing that was more scary and horrific than any other; it really made my hair rise and my teeth ache… and I'm talking about the music. The score was absolutely idiot, ruined many scenes and also killed any attempt to disbelief suspension. On the other hand, one of the best thing in this movie is its humor. I mean not in the sense that it has many jokes or wise cracking, but there is one of the funniest (or rather hysterical!) moments I have seen in zombie flicks – the one involving Argyris and the zombie who interrupted his fun. Oh, and speaking about humor… or maybe goofs?... or maybe genre transgressing?... anyway… I didn't get the scene at 00:37:27, with Argyris hiding behind a, like, 6 inch thick tree… Was it some attempt to put some cartoon fun in a zombie movie?... Hard to say! Finally, the actors. As I still liked this film, I will only add that here at IMDb it's mentioned a sequel will come out next year, starring Billy Zane. Let me just say Mr. Zane is going to be the Dustin Hoffman of the cast. Not a word more!

I was blown away when I first saw this movie. It was its first screening ever, in Thessaloniki's Film Festival. I can tell you this, everyone left the theater struggling for breath. It was too funny for us to swallow!I don't know if i can recommend it to foreign audience. For them, it would seem like a regular zombie movie. But for people that can speak Greek, this is a blast! ALL the clichés, all the idiotic Hollywood phrases we've been used to, are being translated into Greek slang. In the end, the movie is probably the best parody ever. Unfortunately, its highly impossible for foreigners to understand this.Nevertheless, even if you cant see it as a parody, its quite a decent (although too cliché) movie that can offer some fun when watched with loads of friends.ps: when I first saw it, on the 1st line of the theater, there where 20+ people laughing and making voices and zombie jokes. when the screening ended, they walked up the screen and bowed to the audience. they where the entire cast of the movie! oh, and they added "we hope you liked our parody of Hollywood #@$@". oh, we sure did!

Not the best zombie movie ever (a few characters do things a bit too stupid, not that that is unheard of in the zombie genre), but a damned fine addition to the canon. The characters are likable, and it's not always obvious who's going to turn into zombie chow and when. Most importantly, you grow to empathize with the characters -- this isn't just some big dumb video game. And the ending shot is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in one of these movies. I'm sure there are some Greek nuances I'm missing, and maybe even cultural in-jokes, but even without that it was a very enjoyable film. It's not as much a comedy as some seem to claim, but there are humorous moments, most of them involving the slimy yet heroic taxi driver character. But this is less like Return of the Living Dead than Dawn of the Dead 2004, where some moments of levity break up lots of tension. The origin of the zombie plague seems a bit odd, but then again the origins of these things are never the real point of the movies, are they?