eVil Sublet will release on all digital platforms in North America on October 1 from Lion Heart Distribution.
You don’t always have to “reinvent the genre” to make a good movie. Most times, you just need to tell a good story, and some of those stories will be acquired tastes. Alas, as someone not particularly drawn to horror, I would say the biggest appeal for me with a film like eVil Sublet is more ado with its New York indie aesthetics.
It’s a horror movie teeming with lighthearted energy aplenty to accommodate its more macabre and grotesque elements. These aspects are also more foundational to the film’s conceptual growth, overall packaging and thematic delivery as a ghost story set in one of the most bustling cities in the U.S., one with a nice little cherry on top upon the final shot.
How so? Well, to start, eVil Sublet is quick to preamble things with a gruesome bat-out-of-hell shower kill in the moments before we meet Ben (Charley Tucker) and Alex (Jennifer Leigh Houston), a couple who’ve just found their dream apartment in the East Village. It’s rustic, decorative, and notwithstanding Ben’s own apprehension, cheap.
They move in with the help of a few friends along with Ben’s sister (Michelle Ammon), and get settled accordingly, but it’s not long before strange occurrences begin taking place. These are largely happenstance events at times, but it’s only when they escalate that Alex finally starts to grow less comfortable with her new digs.
Unfortunately, Ben is not as fast to catch on. As Alex takes matters into her own hands, she finds herself face to face with the apartment’s murky, hidden corridors, and the ghoulish apparitions and fixtures that have afflicted it for years. Moreover, with the help of a clairvoyant (Stephen Mosher) and his partner Ned (Pat Dwyer), she uncovers an even darker agenda behind the person subletting the apartment, and soon finds herself in a deadly race against time, and a short-term bodycount.
What remains to be seen is if Alex and Ben can survive the ordeal, although the ensuing fallout inspires something more sympathetic in parallel with a film like eVil Sublet. Piper, whose story is inspired by his own experiences, is keen to spotlight life in the big city, exhibited through a lens that applies ample caricature in its approach while never straying far off from the noticable and palatable traits of city living.
Horror fans might also take a liking to the many genre-familiar nods throughout the film ranging from set pieces and props, artworks, and creepy dolls, to a lively little musical number shared between Alex and another character in the second half. The film isn’t heavy on gore and only occurs in a few key areas which serves to advance the story’s supernatural potency.
Foremost among the film’s cast is actress and television icon Sally Struthers in a role that certainly graces viewers in rewarding fashion as the story elucidates who’s who, and worth rooting for by the film’s sanguinary finish. Horror movie puns, oddball characters, unrequited romance, ghoulish chills, creepy crawlers, and a dose of social commentary all bookend Piper’s latest foray in eVil Sublet, a horror story that ought to make any New Yorker feel right at home, more or less.