Review: To Kako ("Evil")

I’m probably not the best person to be reviewing this film. I sat in my lounge room Monday with my laptop furiously writing updates while the movie was playing, so I didn’t really give it my undivided attention. Not that a low budget Zombie flick needs Quantum Amounts of concentration. Fuck it, I seriously doubt any of you will see the film anyway, so here’s my two bits. (Side Note: Working on a laptop in the dark, while simultaneously watching a Horror film on TV, left my eyeballs feeling like my liver - Fucked).

It seems to be a new tradition of mine – finishing up a long weekend with a gory blood-letting film on the Monday night. Last Bank Holiday it was 300. This time round it was the Horror film To Kako (translates to "Evil"), just recently released on DVD. Stranger and I had just joined the Clapham Junction Blockbuster, unfortunately the holiday weekend had wiped out their selection of decent DVDs. That’s when we stumbled across this little bastard and decided to hire it for two reasons:

1. The Cover

It’s generally not wise to hire DVDs solely by their cover design, but we couldn’t resist with this one. Click to enlarge and check it out. It looks like something an angry teenager would stick to his bedroom wall back in 1986. (The film also feels like it was made by angry teenagers. Back in 1986).

2. The film is a Zombie Movie from Greece. In fact, the film is the first and only Zombie film from Greece.

A Zombie Splatter film from Greece intrigued us. Would somebody get decapitated with a Yiros? (Sadly, the answer is no). We decided to give it whirl.


The general gist of the story, is that two miners are deep in a cave and get infected with a virus that turns them into infectious maddened zombies. (What caused the infection? Dunno, wasn’t concentrating. Let’s say a sick bat). They then go around the city of Athens biting and infecting helpless citizens, who then themselves turn into Cannibalistic feral zombies. Yada, yada you know the story.

The Director had a great idea with the cast here – if you have crappy inexperienced actors, then make the characters as complacent as possible. One of the Protagonists is a dozy Cab Driver, who has to be the most laid back character I’ve ever seen in a Horror film. When the Zombie Holocaust first breaks out and the city turns into a War Zone, his first plan of action is to take a nap on the bonnet of his car. In fact, he ends up spending most of the film quietly dozing. Even when this narcolepsy is broken by frequent “Zombie Blow Job Nightmares” later in the film.

I was surprised how long the Cabbie managed to survive in the film, considering the movie didn’t opt for the traditional shambling Romero Zombies. They were more the Olympic Sprinter types like in 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Fuck the living dead can leg it when they want to.

There were other character types vying for survival, all introduced in excessively long and boring expositional scenes I wasn’t paying attention to. Fuck em, most of them got eaten.

But Splatter films are like Porn, you’re not in it for the acting. And To Kako has some decent gore scenes to entertain. I’ll say this about Greek Zombies, they sure have some soft bodies. The Survivors rip arms, legs, torsos apart with ease. Heads get gouged, torn off, and split into two. The Heroes tear apart Zombie after Zombie, getting coated in blood and guts in the process…and seem to be laughing and smiling the whole time. And gosh, why wouldn’t you be. It’s been a while since I saw somebody get strangled with their own disembowelled guts.

Nothing else to really add as it was the same as the last twenty Living dead films I’ve seen, and as far as low budget shitty Zombie films, this one was not bad.

The first Greek Zombie Splatter film. Historic, if nothing else.