The Path of Evil (2005)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

Brad Goodman

Writers:

Justin Ament (writer)
Brad Goodman (writer)

Release Date:

27 December 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror

Tagline:

After 20 years... The serial killer has returned!

Plot:

Twenty Years ago the small coastal town of Devils Lake fell victim to a bizarre string of brutal murders...

Cast

Justin Ament	...	Jake Barker
Ryan Deal	...	Billy McKinley
Carrie Finklea	...	Stacey Rogers
Don Alder	...	Sheriff John Roberts
Katie O'Grady	...	Janelle Winters
Thomas Nabhan	...	Dr. Jim Carpenter
Brad Goodman	...	Professor Duval
Ted Pfeifer	...	Deputy Lee Silver
Eric Newsome	...	Mayor Hawkins
Curt Hanson	...	William Newton
Betty Moyer	...	Helen Newton
Brennan Bailey	...	Little Jake (as Brennan Mundt)
Nicole Karnes	...	Jake's Mother
Wendy Watson	...	Teri
Jason Lawrence	...	Jake's Father

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality.

Runtime:

USA:120 min | USA:113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Estacada, Oregon, USA

Company:

JBA Productions

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Jake visits William's house, Jake asks, "You hear what's been happening lately?," and William replies, "You mean the murders?," clearly referring to murders in the plural. William is later surprised to hear that the body count is "up to three now," even though the killer murdered both his second and third victims at the same crime scene.

Movie Connections:

Follows Harvest of Fear (2004)

New and Improved

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This 'Harvest of Fear' sequel is a better film overall, but still falls short of being great, in this reviewer's humble opinion. Most criticism of the first film was with the writing and the acting talent of the lead characters. Besides the obvious improvement of Justin Ament's abilities, those elements were not improved upon. In fact, the script was even more predictable and cliché this time out (I was whispering the dialog to my girlfriend a beat before it would fall out the actors' mouths), there were extraneous characters and story lines, silly scare tactics were way over-used, and aside from Ament, the young leads showed no improvement in their work. One actress was badly miscast in her role, most likely because she was willing to do the nudity. This is not to say that all of the actors missed the mark- Thomas Nabhan, Don Alder, and Curt Hanson, all veterans of Portland stage and screen, showed prowess in their roles. Another big problem with this movie is the makeup... this may be a little bit nit-picky, but the shot of young Jake with heavy eye shadow and lipstick was laughable, and Katie O'Grady (a beautiful woman and skilled actress) looked more like a call girl than an enthusiastic criminal justice student. Having seen 'Harvest of Fear', I began to wonder (about 30 minutes in) why this movie was taking me down the identical path as the first one, with no new twists in the plot. Eventually the ending came along and... BOOM! a plot twist for the sake of having a plot twist, albeit an unexpected one. This film does not need to be buried under a foam grave marker on a coastal cliff, and I'm sure fans of the genre will watch it once, but that's about all I can say about it.