Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl (2002)

Imagine if Dr. Seuss combined genius with Edgar Allan Poe, with Tim Burton bouncing ideas off of them, and what do you get? Well, if you’re lucky you’d get Evelyn, the cutest evil dead girl, a demented fairytale with the mood and color you never get in films anymore, the mood and color that’s missing from the horror genre today. Many call this basically a rip from “Lenore the Living Dead Girl” comic book, and perhaps that’s true, but “Evelyn” is such a sick and demented short film I had so much fun watching that I didn’t really care.

Evelyn is a lonely dead girl who rises from the grave every night as a zombie, as our rhyming deep voiced narrator tells us, and uses her trusty .45 to shoot down her own pets and play with them along her dirt plot, and while dead animals are fun, Evelyn wants someone she can interact with. Director Brad Peyton’s short film is pretty damn demented consisting of gore, morbid rhymes, sick characters, and set pieces you’d find only in a Tim Burton film. The film basically chronicles Evelyn’s journey for a best friend which include her attempting to act like a human being and befriending the elite blonde groupies in her neighborhood whom are intent on torturing the local neighborhood boy. Nadia Litz is creepy, freaky, and fun as Evelyn who looks like a wicked combination of Wednesday Addams, and Angela Bettis of “May”.

Litz seems to be having a lot of fun with the character, and it’s hard not to like Evelyn who seems to want friends but can’t find a way to keep them. ” Evelyn” views almost like a Burton wet dream, as the set pieces are simple but oddly gothic. Each of the characters have some sort dark circle under their eyes, and Evelyn is fleshed out very well in only eight minutes, the entire eight of which ends in a gruesome finale that really did have leave me with a smile only Evelyn could have. It’s not surprising this has a small following. I loved this movie simply because you don’t get stuff like this anymore. It’s unabashed semi-Poe quasi-Burton with some Dr. Seuss about a zombie who wants friends. Casper never had a .45, and he never gave people hearts as gifts, so you know this is original.