On Evil Grounds (2007)

Touches You

So much average

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I expected a lot from this because I read the other reviews. However, 'Auf bösem Boden' was a total letdown. It bored my right from the start and after 20 minutes I fast-forwarded it. I haven't seen a more tedious, artificial film recently. The acting and dialog gave me stomach cramps; everything was so staged I just couldn't bear watching it. Usually, Austrian movies have a very special kind of humor to them. This film hasn't. It's almost as if the filmmaker wanted to be his work so 'different' that it just turned out flat and weak. If you're looking for a good, fun-to-watch Austrian/German horror film, I'd recommend 'Rammbock'.

I visited Germany a while last year, conventions, shopping and holiday so it was time to catch some movies coming Germany/Swiss/Austria that aren't available in our country. Packed with a few bags this is the first one I watched as a double disc edition. The storyline is simple, girl wants that her boyfriend buys her a loft. But the guy don't want it to buy but after a while he did but things get wrong. He's very aggressive and he ends up killing some one, won't spoil it. But things get worser. It is a funny but also a hard storyline. the blood flows sometimes but it is the acting and the editing that makes this movie one of a kind. It's spoken in German but it do has his English subs. It isn't horror at all, sometimes it made me think of the funny scene's in Natural Born Killers. Anyway, a simple storyline but worth watching if you aren't offended easily.

There are various ways to interpret "On Evil Grounds", the mental state of seriousness definitely NOT being one of them. This incredibly low-budgeted and amateur produced "new-age Grindhouse" movie is completely shameless, vulgar, tasteless, nonsensical, offensive and demented. At the festival where I attended the Belgian premiere, writer/director Peter Koller – as well as half of the film's cast – was present and he himself described the film as a psychotic survival-version of … "Romeo and Juliet". Yeah, okay! Who knows what to expect from a vague and bizarre one-line summery like that? Only five minutes far into the film, however, and you'll have to admit it's a pretty accurate description! We follow a young couple referred to as Romeo and Juliet. He's a sadistic freak in desperate need of anger management and she's a hopeless romanticist with insatiable sexual desires. They're looking for a loft to settle down together but run into a pair of freaks that are even crazier then themselves. The real estate agent and his boss, some kind of inbred car technician, use the loft to lure young couples, capture them and subsequently submit them to sheer torture. Romeo literally ends up to his neck in trouble, but he's not exactly an obedient hostage and Juliet won't surrender without putting up a fight, neither. The comparisons between "On Evil Grounds" and Tex Avery's lifework are more than justified. The filming style, sense of humor and especially the violence in this movie are very cartoonesque. In terms of exploitation/horror cinema, this translates as OTT extreme vulgarity and splatters that yet never once feels disturbing or even remotely scary. Peter Koller and C° are simply out to disgust people and succeed quite well, I may add. There's random vomiting, wife beating, rough sex, bondage and the wildest masturbation scene ever filmed. Needless to say "On Evil Grounds" isn't a very good film story-wise, but it uses some terrific locations, ingenious set pieces and inventive photography. The limited cast gives away enthusiast performances and Peter Koller obviously knows his horror/spaghetti western/euro-trash classics.

'On Evil Grounds' clearly shows, what is possible if you are a passionate filmmaker. Without large budget, Peter Koller made it to create an absolutely extraordinary movie, which contains new, funny and sometimes absurd ideas. The good cast leaves no doubt about that movie, especially Kari Rakkola in his role as a psychopathic but pitiable killer is just perfect.I saw the movie and the director at the 'Diagonale' film festival in Graz and I was thrilled by such a great genre mix. Solid trash horror elements mixed with totally funny scenes make 'On Evil Grounds' a movie that you want to see again.Thumbs up for the young digital film-making community!