For much of its running time, EVIL HAS A FACE is a nifty suspense drama that doesn't leave the audience groaning at some crossroads of coincidence. Weaving the police sketch artist into its story line much more astutely than other crime-solving fare like THE SKETCH ARTIST (1992), this
deft thriller features strong acting at its center with some keen psychological observations around its periphery.
Sketch artist Gwen McGarrell (Sean Young) doesn't relish her latest police assignment. The site of this missing-child case in Redmund, Minn., is too close to her hometown and the scene of her own childhood traumas. Although Gwen is treated respectfully by Redmund deputy sheriff Tom Sawyer (William
R. Moses), her unconventional methods are disparaged by the FBI agents on the case.
Working from the memory of a girl Bria (Brighton Herftord) who has escaped from her abductor, Gwen produces a sketch that she releases to the media. Risking the scorn of the feds, Gwen then repudiates her drawing without revealing why: the face she sketched is that of her "late" stepfather, Henry
Willis McGarrell (Chelcie Ross), who sexually abused Gwen thoughout her childhood.
Although circumstantial evidence pushes the FBI toward Skullington (Jason Wells), a recidivist molester, Tom agrees with Gwen's deduction that Bria's kidnapping is linked to a string of youngsters' murders. Gwen's investigation reveals that her stepfather did not die as she was told. After
strangling her mother to death, McGarrell was imprisoned and released in 1993, when the child murders began.
The unbalanced Skullington turns up at Gwen's cabin with a grudge and is later killed while fleeing authorities. While the police are busy wrapping up the Skullington case, McGarrell menaces Gwen and Bria. Although he orders Bria into a closet, the resourceful child sneaks a gun into the taped
hands of Gwen. Subsequently, Gwen wounds McGarrell. McGarrell closes in on Gwen and Bria, and Gwen manages to surprise McGarrell and stab him.
Among this thriller's plusses is its underlying insistence that victims can recover their self-respect. Gwen, not as helpless as she thought, saves Bria's life and her own before the cops storm her cabin. Enriched by the bond between Gwen and Bria, the film works as a catharsis in which Gwen
empowers a child to fight back in a way she was never able to do in her own tainted childhood. In return, Bria enables the adult Gwen to exorcise her girlhood demons.
Despite the audience's interest in Gwen's psychological battle, the police work itself is rather routine, especially the old saw about the FBI looking down their noses at the small-town crime beat. More effective as a character-driven suspense drama than a standard nab-a-killer chiller, EVIL HAS A
FACE is fine as melodrama and fair as criminology. (Profanity, violence, sexual situations, adult situations) leave a comment