Evil's City (2005)

Competing college tv reporters Courtney and Amber try to locate the ghost town of Ancheron. Legend has it that the town's sin was so great that heaven and hell intervened and the inhabitants died. Courtney and Amber each want to be the first to solve the mystery of what really happened.

Amber's friends steal Courtney's map/photos/research and determine exactly where the town is located. This begs the question, why is Courtney driving around asking people in the area if anyone has heard of Acheron. Why not try the spot that you mapped out, which as it turns out is exactly where Acheron is located.

Instead Courtney antagonizes the locals to the point that they beat up her cameraman, Todd. Then she happens upon the mysterious man in black who can show them where Acheron is, and says he will show it to them as a warning. Oh yes, this will be a warning well heeded indeed.

Once each group finds the town the film takes on a cross processed faded 1970s look to it. Amber and her friends spend the night in town in one of the houses. The next thing you know it is daylight. This means Courtney and Todd spent all night standing in the woods looking at the mist covered valley where Acheron is located.

Everyone in town died on the same day. So each team (who is unaware that the other is in town) tries to figure out what happened. Amber looks around one of the buildings and reports that no one will ever knows what happened because the records have disappeared. Courtney proves herself smarter, as well as a better reporter, by actually searching the building that houses public records. She and Todd find notes and records on the causes of the deaths giving her a huge advantage in her story. Then the army shows up.

Turns out Acheron is on government property and the Army found one of the reporters cars. So they went searching for the trespassers. Too bad because they are going to run into the same problems that the college kids are going to find - bad demon demon makeup and cgi. Yes, it's a low budget film, but that doesn't mean it has to look this bad.

After some Army deaths and running around by our reporters, there is lots of exposition from a survivor who lives in town, (he was away when everyone died). Later a priest offers more exposition to move us towards the end of the film.

While this is not a good film, it's not as bad as I'd heard. Sure it's ridiculous, the acting is not very good, the script requires exposition, and the film starts out with a cliche with a bible verse on the screen but.... well, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen. I might have been more disappointed if I hadn't read how bad it was before viewing it. I was expecting something much worse.

That being said there are several more things I'd like to mention:

1. The film believes in constant little camera movements which can be very annoying. It also seems to have needle drop music, which can be cool if it's purposely used for an effect, but that wasn't the case here.
2. The town is right where legend says it is, so why hasn't anyone ever found it?
3. The Army guy who looks for the circuit breaker heads down in daylight but doesn't find it until it is dark out.
4. Why would a legendary town that no one can locate still have electricity?
5. If you're in an abandoned ghost town and two mysterious girls in lingerie show up in the middle of the night, why wouldn't Army personnel be suspicious?
6. Amber hears a little girl laughing and heads off to find her. It's daytime. She is still wandering around at 1am - WTF?!

Also the film includes this classic dialogue:

Girl in Dorm: Any word on the bitch?

Todd: Wanna ease up? She's in the hospital.

Girl in Dorm: Gee talk about irony.

Huh?