One of my faults is that I judge a lot of movies by their running time. When I am going to see a movie in the theatre, I am usually turned off by films that exceed the two hour mark as in today's day and age, most movies are not good enough to carry on for more than 120 minutes. The reality is that the days of epics like Ben-Hur and Spartacus are behind us and although there is a rare exception like Magnolia, the running time is usually filled with padding that detracts from the experience (ahem, King Kong). In the world of slasher movies, I feel as though an acceptable running time is 90 minutes give or take 10 minutes. Once you exceed, the 100 minute mark, however, this better be a gorefest on par with Dead Alive or I am going to be very annoyed. In the case of The Path Of Evil, I fell asleep.

The story begins by establishing that a guy named Jake is on leave from his duties in the local police station because he has some issues. It turns out that the root of them is because his parents (and a bunch of other people) were killed by a slasher called the Key Hole Killer twenty years earlier. Jake sets out to discover who killed his parents while battling his personal demons, the bottle, and the fact that his ex-girlfriend has started dating a new medical examiner who should have been named Randy. To attempt to make this mundane mystery a bit more interesting, there is also a new "copycat" killer repeating the sins of the past while wearing a lame, unoriginal mask so he looks like a cross between Jigsaw and Michael Myers.

Titles cannot always tell you about a movie but in this case, the subject matter is about as original as the title suggests. We have the usual stock characters, red herrings, and token body count that we normally get in a slasher film as well as the trippy flashbacks that seem to be in every low budget horror movie these days. What's missing in this one is the campiness that makes a lot of slasher movies fun as this movie is played very straight. Although director Brad Goodman does manage to elicit some jolts and has the ability to create some suspense, this movie just doesn't have a lot going for it. The cast was average with nothing to really complain about other than the monotone delivery of lines by lead actor Justin Ament. As this was the character we were supposed to be involved with, I should have been intrigued by his plight. Instead, I ended up finding myself just waiting for the next kill. As the running time was 110 minutes, sometimes this was a long wait.

There were a few decent practical effects on display including an ear chopping, a hand chopping, and some stabbings. I can also add that the score was quite good lending a fair bit of mood to the death scenes. In fact, most of the scenes with the killer were staged quite well. It's too bad that they felt the need to extend the story to such a large degree. If the film had been tightened up to a cool 80 minutes, this could have been a much different experience.

This movie is actually a sequel to a movie called Harvest Of Fear that features most of the same actors and characters but a different plot. The whole thing seems really confusing to me but I am not about the watch the original to satisfy my curiosity. I will have forgotten about this movie by the end of the weekend. Look for director Goodman as the college prof who specializes in serial killers. (Josh Pasnak, 6/25/06)

Directed By: Brad Goodman.
Written By: Brad Goodman, Justin Ament, Ted Pfeifer.

Starring: Justin Ament, Ryan Deal, Carrie Finklea, Don Alder.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: This looked decent enough as it is a newer film. Still had a certain low-budget vibe going on.

Extras: There were no features on the disc we received but the retail version contains storyboards, trailers, and an interview with special effect make-up artist E. Larry Day.

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