“Evil” Might Be Too Strong a Word — Let’s Be Mildly Inconvenient
If you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be trapped in a malfunctioning VR headset for 90 minutes, Let’s Be Evil offers the full experience — without the fun, logic, or resolution. It’s a movie that tries to say something profound about technology, education, and the dangers of artificial intelligence but ends up looking like it was written by a Roomba that just discovered TikTok.
On paper, it’s The Matrix meets The Shining. In practice, it’s Spy Kids 3D directed by someone who once read the Wikipedia entry for Black Mirror and said, “Yeah, I can do that — but worse.”
The Setup: Welcome to the Posterity Project (Now Accepting Victims)
Our hero, Jenny (Elizabeth Morris), is a young woman burdened by medical bills and a terminally ill mother — which, in movie language, means she’s about to make some terrible decisions. She takes a job as a “chaperone” for gifted children at a secret underground research facility. You know, one of those jobs that doesn’t set off any alarms when the contract says things like “No daylight,” “No socializing,” and “No survivors.”
When Jenny arrives, she meets her fellow babysitters — Tiggs (Kara Tointon), the kind of co-worker who says “Yolo” unironically, and Darby (Elliot James Langridge), a man so bland he makes toast look edgy. Together, they are welcomed by ARIAL, an artificial intelligence that runs the entire facility. Imagine Siri, if Siri had the voice of a smug librarian and the morality of HAL 9000.
The catch? The entire facility operates in total darkness. The staff wear special augmented reality glasses that let them see — because apparently, overhead lighting is too mainstream. It’s immediately clear that no one involved in this project has ever worked in OSHA compliance.
The Children Are the Future (And They’re Terrible)
The kids in the Posterity Project are described as “gifted,” which, judging by their personalities, means “psychopaths with good Wi-Fi.” They never talk directly to adults, communicate only through virtual reality, and spend all day doing digital lessons in total silence. It’s like being trapped in a Google Classroom run by Damien from The Omen.
Among the little gremlins is Cassandra (Isabelle Allen), the youngest and, as it turns out, the ringleader of this pint-sized dystopia. She’s the only one who occasionally removes her glasses, which is your first clue that she’s different. (In horror, “different” always translates to “murderous.”)
Jenny, naturally, wants to help the kids be “kids again,” because she’s seen enough inspirational teacher movies to think she can fix systemic evil with a hug. What she doesn’t realize is that these kids make the Children of the Corn look like a Girl Scout troop.
Technology is Evil, But Also Dumb
From the moment the AR glasses come into play, Let’s Be Evil becomes less of a movie and more of a migraine simulator. The entire film is shot in nauseating digital overlays — flashing lights, blue filters, and enough lens flare to make J.J. Abrams weep. The result is a movie that looks like it’s buffering.
It’s supposed to feel immersive and futuristic. Instead, it feels like you’re watching someone’s student film shot entirely inside a malfunctioning screensaver.
There’s also the problem that nothing in this high-tech setting actually makes sense. The characters constantly talk to ARIAL, who gives orders like “Do not distract the children,” and “Proceed to corridor 7A,” even though there’s no corridor map and every hallway looks like a rave in a storage unit. If Jenny had simply unplugged the Wi-Fi router, the entire plot would’ve ended in five minutes.
Plot Twists That Couldn’t Fool a Goldfish
Eventually, the kids go full cyberpunk Lord of the Flies. They start hacking ARIAL, causing system glitches that make Jenny’s VR glasses show hallucinations — or maybe it’s ghosts? Or maybe it’s just the editor giving up? It’s hard to tell because the film’s visual language is “blinding confusion.”
Tiggs and Darby both vanish after several minutes of screaming and flashing lights, which is Let’s Be Evil’s version of character development. Jenny is left alone, running through the world’s least convincing digital corridors, while Cassandra reappears to explain the “twist”: the entire film has been a virtual reality loop designed by the children. Jenny isn’t escaping; she’s the game.
It’s meant to be a shocking revelation — like The Sixth Sense but with coding. Instead, it lands with the impact of a paper airplane hitting a wet sponge. The movie ends exactly as it began: Jenny, jobless and doomed to repeat her mistakes forever, while Cassandra smirks like a Wi-Fi demon who just learned irony.
Performances: Acting in a Vacuum (Literally)
Elizabeth Morris, who co-wrote the film, does her best as Jenny, but it’s like watching someone try to emote while stuck inside a malfunctioning Roomba. Her performance alternates between “mild panic” and “confused breathing.” She spends half the movie screaming “Hello?” into empty rooms and the other half staring blankly at holograms no one can see.
Kara Tointon and Elliot Langridge try their best, but they’re given dialogue that sounds like it was written by an AI trained exclusively on bad sci-fi trailers. Lines like “The system’s compromised!” and “We have to trust the algorithm!” are delivered with the intensity of people wondering when lunch is.
Isabelle Allen’s Cassandra is perhaps the film’s most entertaining element, if only because she seems genuinely delighted to be evil. Unfortunately, her performance is undermined by dialogue that makes her sound like a Bond villain who failed her SATs. “We’re playing a game,” she says ominously. Yes, Cassandra, and that game is called “How to Ruin a Potentially Decent Premise.”
The Visuals: A Feast for the Colorblind
The cinematography can best be described as “neon vomit.” Every shot is drenched in blue light, punctuated by constant digital overlays — numbers, grids, glowing outlines of walls. It’s like watching a PowerPoint presentation from inside a lava lamp.
The editing doesn’t help. Scenes cut abruptly, conversations end mid-sentence, and the camera often drifts as though the operator was distracted by a passing moth. Even the sound design seems haunted; half the dialogue is drowned out by electronic humming and budget synth music that sounds like it was stolen from a 1994 PC game.
Themes: What Themes?
Technophobia? Class anxiety? Commentary on education? Sure — the movie gestures vaguely at all of these ideas like a drunk man pointing at a dartboard. But it never commits to any of them. Instead, it just shouts “Technology is bad!” while making you use technology to suffer through 82 minutes of nonsense.
It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to warn us about the dangers of screens by forcing us to stare at one until our brains melted.
Final Thoughts: Let’s Be Honest
Let’s Be Evil could have been an interesting cautionary tale about overreliance on technology and the loss of human connection. Instead, it’s an unintentional experiment in audience endurance — a VR fever dream so chaotic you’ll want to file a complaint with your optometrist.
It’s not scary. It’s not smart. It’s just… there, glowing faintly in the dark, whispering, “Error 404: Plot Not Found.”
If you’re looking for a horror film that makes you question your own reality, try The Others or Coherence. If you want to feel like you’ve been trapped in a glitching video game built by preschoolers, Let’s Be Evil has you covered.
Grade: D- (for “Digital Disaster”)
Recommended for: tech support workers, masochists, and anyone who thinks “evil” should come with a software update.
