“Foul Evil Deeds” is a movie that feels like peeking through your neighbor’s blinds and catching them in the middle of something morally questionable, except it happens over and over again across different houses. This is a movie with an expansive cast of seemingly normal people doing increasingly awful things. Director Richard Hunter’s anthology-style dark comedy pieces together vignettes of everyday pettiness, bad decisions, and low-key cruelty, all delivered with a heavy dose of deadpan humor and British sensibilities.
The film thrives on its voyeuristic approach, tapping into the collective (and admittedly, very human) obsession with judging others. Each story presents a character who decides to indulge their worst instincts, be it out of spite, boredom, or just sheer selfishness. Some of the stories are better than others, with a couple hitting harder due to their wit and unsettling realism. A handful of other stories meander a bit too long and drag down the film’s momentum.
There’s something undeniably entertaining about watching so-called “good” people succumb to their worst impulses, and Hunter finds humor in the absurdity of it all. The problem is that his story sometimes indulges itself a little too much and comes close to overstaying its welcome. By the time the last few vignettes roll around, the film starts to feel less like a sharp satire and more like a collection of shorts that didn’t all need to be crammed into the same movie.
Even at its most indulgent, “Foul Evil Deeds” offers plenty of dark laughs and a refreshingly cynical take on human nature. It may not always dig into the consequences of its characters’ bad choices, but maybe that’s the point. After all, sometimes people do awful things, and life just moves on.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 