Evilenko | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Grieco |
Written by | David Grieco |
Produced by | Mario Cotone |
Starring | Malcolm McDowell Marton Csokas Ronald Pickup Frances Barber John Benfield Vernon Dobtcheff |
Cinematography | Fabio Zamarion |
Edited by | Francesco Bilotti Massimo Fiocchi |
Music by | Angelo Badalamenti Dolores O'Riordan |
Production companies | Pacific Pictures MiBAC |
Distributed by | Mikado (Italy) TLA Releasing (UK) Jinga Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 111 minutes [1] |
Country | Italy |
Language | English |
Budget | $9.7 million |
Evilenko is a 2004 English-language Italian crime horror thriller film very loosely based on the Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Written and directed by David Grieco, the film stars Malcolm McDowell, Marton Csokas, and Ronald Pickup.
In 1984, in Kyiv, schoolteacher Andrej Romanovich Evilenko is dismissed from his position after attempting to rape a pupil. Driven by his psychopathic urges and embittered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Evilenko begins to rape, kill, and cannibalise women and children. It is hinted throughout the movie that Evilenko somehow gained the power to hypnotise his victims, which accounts for their lack of resistance and his continuous evasion of the authorities.
Vadim Timurouvic Lesiev, a magistrate and family man, is assigned to catch the serial killer. For years, Evilenko eludes Lesiev and psychiatrist Aron Richter, who is assigned to profile the killer. Richter eventually finds Evilenko with a little girl and manages to break Evilenko's hypnotic hold on her, but is killed by Evilenko in retaliation; although it appears to Evilenko that she is run over by a train, the girl escapes alive.
Almost two years later, Lesiev finally captures Evilenko, who by now has killed 55 people, mostly children and young women. On 22 May 1992, Evilenko goes to court, and on 14 February 1994, he is finally executed. Before his execution, two governments expressed interest in Evilenko's psychic abilities and asked for extradition of Evilenko but were denied.
The story is a fictionalization of the life and crimes of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Large segments of the film were adapted from Grieco's novel entitled The Communist Who Ate Children. The character is renamed Andrei Evilenko in reference to Chikatilo. [2]
The soundtrack was composed by Angelo Badalamenti and features two tracks with Dolores O'Riordan, "Angels Go to Heaven" and "No Way Out". It has been released in 2004 on CD digipak by Italian music label Minus Habens Records.
Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Ukrainian-born Soviet serial killer nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, the Rostov Ripper, and the Red Ripper who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR.
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor. He first became known for portraying Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson's if.... (1968), a role he later reprised in O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982). His performance in if.... prompted Stanley Kubrick to cast him as Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971), the role for which McDowell became best known.
Citizen X is a 1995 American television film which covers the efforts of detectives in the Soviet Union to capture an unknown serial killer of women and children in the 1980s, and the bureaucratic obstacles they encounter. The film is based upon the true story of Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 of the murder of 52 women and children committed between 1978 and 1990. It stars Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland, and Max Von Sydow. The film is based on Robert Cullen's non-fiction book The Killer Department, published in 1993.
Marton Paul Csokas is a New Zealand actor of film, stage, and television. A graduate of the Toi Whakaari drama school, he has worked extensively in Australia and Hollywood, along with his native country, and often portrays villainous roles.
Ronald Alfred Pickup was an English actor. He was active in television, film, and theatre, beginning with a 1964 appearance in Doctor Who. Theatre critic Michael Billington described him as "a terrific stage star and an essential member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company". His major screen roles included the title role in The Life of Verdi and Prince Yakimov in Fortunes of War (1987).
Sergey Aleksandrovich Golovkin was a Soviet-Russian serial killer, rapist and necrophile, convicted for the killing of 11 boys between the ages of 10 and 16 in the Moscow area between 1986 and 1992. Golovkin, also known as Fisher and The Boa, tortured, raped and killed young boys in his garage basement and the forests outside Moscow.
Norman Afzal Simons, known as the Station Strangler, is a South African murderer, rapist and suspected serial killer in Cape Town in the late 20th century. He was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen in 1995 and sentenced to 25 years. He became eligible for parole in July 2023 and was released on parole and under 24-hour monitoring in November 2023.
Vladimir Anatolyevich Mukhankin is a Russian serial killer, convicted for the murder of 9 people in Rostov Oblast in 1995.
Child 44 is a 2015 mystery thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Richard Price, and based on Tom Rob Smith's 2008 novel of the same name. The film stars an ensemble cast featuring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, and Vincent Cassel. It was released on 17 April 2015. Both the novel and the film are very loosely based on the case of Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. The film was a box office bomb, grossing just $13 million against its $50 million budget.
David Grieco is an Italian director, screenwriter and former actor.
Mikhail Viktorovich Popkov is a Russian serial killer, rapist, and necrophile who committed the sexual assault and murder of eighty-three girls and women between 1992 and 2010 in Angarsk, Irkutsk, in Siberia, and Vladivostok in Far East, although he has confessed to and is suspected of at least eighty-six in total. He is known as "the Werewolf" and "the Angarsk Maniac" for the particularly brutal nature of his crimes; he would extensively mutilate the bodies of his victims and perform sexual acts on them. Popkov was also known as "the Wednesday Murderer" due to bodies of his victims usually being found on Wednesdays. He is the single most prolific serial killer in Russian history.
Konstantin G. Cheryomushkin, known as The Bataysk Maniac and Chikatilo's Double, was a Soviet serial killer. He raped and killed four girls in the satellite town of Bataysk in Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast, Russian SFSR.
Roman Vladimirovich Burtsev, known as The Kamensky Chikatilo, is a Russian serial killer and pedophile. Between 1993 and 1996, he raped and strangled six young children: five girls and one of the victims' brother. He committed all of the crimes in his hometown.
Nikolai Porfirievich Shestakov, known as The Luberetsky Maniac, was a Soviet serial killer and rapist, who worked as a truck driver.
Yuri Leonidovich Tsiuman, known as The Black Tights Killer, and The Night Guest, is a Soviet serial killer. All of his victims are reported to have worn pantyhoses. This article of clothing became known as the killer's "calling card".
Vasily Alexandrovich Smirnov, known as The Gatchina Psychopath, was a Soviet serial killer, rapist, cannibal, brigand, robber, and arsonist.
Andrey Sergeyеvich Yezhov, known as The Kashirsky Maniac, was a Russian serial killer and rapist who was forensically linked to at least nine sexually-motivated attacks against young girls and women in Moscow's Kashirsky and Stupinsky districts from 2010 to 2020, seven of which were fatal. He was arrested and later admitted to the respective crimes, but hanged himself in the detention center before he could be charged.
Andrei Ivanovich Barausov, known as The Lensky Maniac, is a Soviet-Russian serial killer and rapist who murdered at least 7 underage girls in Sakha from 1983 to 1997. Most of these killings remained unsolved until early January 2023, when Barausov, now serving a sentence for serial rape, confessed to them.
Mikhail Fetisov was a career police detective and member of the Moscow Militia who in 1983 became the lead investigator into the Andrei Chikatilo serial murder case. He later became a lieutenant general in the Russian police force.