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Kris Rothstein's Blog

Leslie, My Name is Evil

Kris Rothstein

Reg Harkema is a Vancouver director now working
in Toronto. His first movie,
, was a lo-fi hit and his second
was the flawed but intriguing
. He has now turned his attention
to a retelling of the Manson famiy trial, offset by the story of a young
chemist selected to be on the jury. Perry is trying to do everything right but he can't stop thinking about cute murderous Leslie, even when she cuts a cross into her forehead and shaves her head. Will he be able to vote for the death penalty?

Harkema believes he has made a profound artistic statement
about the fine line between good and evil, but he hasn’t. He might also think
this is a funny film, which it is not. It is quite violent but pretty and it is entetaining but pointless. Harkema could have pushed this much further and I wish he'd given us a film with a bit more substance.

comes from the
title, a song by the band
. Harkema named the film after the
song but then discovered the actual lyric was “Leslie, my name isn’t Eva.”

There is no picture here because they are all too
disturbing.

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