This film tells the story of a gang of ruthless criminals who will kill at the blink of an eye to rob people on the highway. When they set their next target on a couple in a pub, they have made a big mistake as they are messing with someone they should not have.The title "No One Lives" gives an indication that characters in the film are probably going to die. Indeed, "No One Lives" is a slasher film in which people die in a variety of bloody ways. Luke Evans, who have yet to make it famous at that time, is great in his portrayal of a spine chilling character. The actress playing Emma Ward has this strange calmness in her, which makes her character mysterious and captivating. The bad guy thug is convincing too.

If you are looking for a perfectly bad (in all the right mind screwy ways) slasher film, this is it. Luke Evans is so freakin crazy awesome in this movie. He is a psycho that makes no apologies for it. Almost terminator like killing but very creative and oh yeah they went there kind of killing. This movie was non stop action, blood, guts and dark humor all the way from beginning to end. For some reason you just adore Luke Evan's brand of crazy, almost cheering for him by the end. Is it because he's gorgeous, yes, but it's just so well played. You don't want it to end. But....everyone is dead so it had to end.....almost everyone.

At an early stage in this film it's clear that we're intentionally wrong-footed in how we're supposed to perceive the wealthy couple. They're portrayed as being an average wealthy couple and are the ones who we presume are the victims of a brutal kidnapping by a bunch of highway killers. It's an interesting turn of events when we learn that the highway killers have picked on the wrong couple and it turns out that they are violent psychopathic killers themselves. This, in effect, means that the supposed kidnappers end up being victims to their own crime and this role-reversal does make it quite interesting in the early stages...The film generally maintains this theme for most of its running time; the isolated environment and Luke Evans chilling portrayal does give the film a sense of claustrophobia and also means that the film has many tense and suspenseful sequences. Once Evans is let loose it does become a hard film to take your eyes off and it often leaves the viewer wondering what he will do next. On the downside I did feel that the filmmakers blood-lust got in the way far too often and there were far too many bloody and gory scenes - Evans character was chilling and cold enough in himself and I just felt that all the gore and blood took the focus away from Evans superb performance and cheapened the film somewhat.As I've mentioned Evans is very good here easily bringing the necessary menace and evil to befit his character. Sadly his co-stars let him down badly as they generally fall into the usual stock horror clichés - nearly all of them overact and bicker and at times it got very annoying.It seemed that the writers had run out of ideas by the final third of the film and things start to become rather generic; the original kidnappers are being picked off one by one, but all these scenes are trotted out in a predictable fashion leading to a fairly safe and predictable conclusion.It's a passable film if you keep your expectations low and yes it does have some tension and suspense, but I just didn't feel that it delivered on these things consistently enough and as a result the film was only compelling in parts rather than as a whole.

Luke Evans plays a "driver" whose name is never uttered in the film; he's on a car trip, accompanied by Betty (Laura Ramsey). It would seem that they're a couple, in a relationship on the rocks because of an infidelity, but that's not the case. They encounter a crazed family of criminals, led by a patriarch named Hoag (the always solid Lee Tergesen). One of Hoags' men is a psycho named Flynn (Derek Magyar), who hassles the "couple" and ultimately abducts them. The twist is that Flynn has picked exactly the WRONG dude with which to mess around. The Driver is anything but a "normal", average-guy hero.Some people may find "No One Lives" to be somewhat tough going, especially because there are NO real "good guys" in this story. It's more a case of "evil people encountering an even MORE evil person", and as such is pretty damn riveting visceral entertainment. This viewer very much just went with the flow, not caring much whether any of it made sense, and just had fun with the very dark (literally and figuratively) material. One could sense that makeup effects artist Robert Hall and his Almost Human company were having a ball because the movie is very, very gory. It lives up to its title as it devises one gruesome comeuppance after another for its characters, whether or not they're redeemable or not that bad in the first place. (When one dying person whines that they "didn't do anything wrong", our antagonist suggests that they're just unlucky, then.) The script, by David Cohen, tries to develop the relationship between our psycho lead and his "victim" in what is supposedly an interesting way, but in truth it's just not as effective as the action and carnage in this thing.The studly Evans does a creditable job in the lead, displaying some good low key charisma. Among our various lowlifes, Magyar stands out as the impulsive, trigger happy, greedy Flynn, a nutter who inevitably meets his match. Adelaide Clemens is cast as Emma, and while it's commendable to see a character like hers not be intimidated by the criminal element surrounding her, she's just not that strong an actress. The cast is mostly passable; there's a good role for veteran character actor Gary Grubbs as a hotel proprietor.Recommended for action, thriller, and horror / gore lovers who actually prefer to watch characters not really meant to be seen as "likable".Seven out of 10.