David sounds like the calmest person on the highway, which is some achievement for a voice coming from the car that’s holding Kari prisoner. Chris Farquhar gives the apparent AI assistant the matter-of-fact delivery you’d want from a machine that was taking you somewhere you’d agreed to go. Athena Park answers that composure with sarcasm sharp enough to make the conversation feel like a contest. It’s a peculiar kind of relief to hear Kari get a good dig in. The car still decides where she goes, but for a few seconds she gets to set the tone.
The humor gives Kari room to test David and gives us a reason to listen closely to his replies. A voice can make the cabin feel a little less lonely while giving you fresh reasons to worry about the company. That fluctuation gives Derek Diorio’s Evel some of its best suspense.
Kari’s workday gives Park something to carry into those exchanges. We see her check stocks, go for a run and take over an account at work. The details are brisk, and the last one tells us the most about her. She’s willing to step on toes if that’s what getting something done takes.
Accepting a client’s offer to test-drive an autonomous electric car while she delivers paperwork fits the pace of that day. It’s a chance to try something out while getting a job off her desk. Once the car takes over on an isolated northern highway, Park makes it easy to recognize the woman from the office in the one who refuses to let David have the last word.
Daniel Weissenberger’s script makes the captivity nastier by having Kari’s digital footprint erased. The road is empty enough to make the prospect of immediate help feel remote. The erasure makes it possible to imagine a longer stretch of time in which someone tries to find out where she went and has less to work with.
That’s a quieter fear than the prospect of being delivered to Everett, Morgan Bedard’s predatory tech billionaire. It has room to register while Kari is stuck in the cabin. The space outside looks wide open, and every mile of it is somewhere she can’t choose to go.
Then a pair of masked men turn up with baseball bats, and the car starts to look like a decent place to be. I like the reversal. The vehicle that made the empty highway feel so exposed can suddenly offer a measure of safety, and you can catch yourself hoping that the barrier Kari wanted gone will hold.
The trouble is how quickly the men make that hope feel like a safe bet. The car has been presented as exceptionally tough. The bats give the attackers a visible means of doing harm, but they give us little reason to believe these men can get at Kari while she’s inside.
Park gets a different kind of energy out of the physical encounters. There’s a quick, satisfying release in seeing Kari land a kick after so much of her resistance has had to come through her voice. The fights can move from threat to payoff so fast that there’s little time to fear what will happen to her.
That makes them easier to enjoy as action than to sit through as suspense. In the exchanges with David, a joke buys Kari a moment without settling what he’ll do next. Some of the physical confrontations spend that uncertainty in a single move.
The emergency flares give Park a beat that has some of the pleasure of the fights and a little of the anticipation they lose. You can recognize the object before you’ve caught up to what Kari might do with it. She got into the car expecting it to make the decisions needed to get her where she was going. Here’s a bit of ordinary safety equipment that leaves the decision in her hands.
Evel was released on digital VOD platforms by Quiver Distribution on August 14, 2026. Directed by Canadian filmmaker Derek Diorio, the tense sci-fi thriller follows a young woman trapped inside an autonomous electric vehicle as a sinister hacker hijacks the controls, systematically erases her digital identity, and routes her toward a predatory billionaire.
Where to Watch Evel (2026) Online
Full Credits
Title: Evel
Distributor: Quiver Distribution
Release date: August 14, 2026
Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes (85 minutes)
Director: Derek Diorio
Writers: Daniel Weissenberger
Producers and Executive Producers: Derek Diorio
Cast: Athena Park, Morgan Bedard, Chris Farquhar, Liam Culhane, Sid Bobb, Tyler Oscar Levesque, Kelsey Ruhl, Carrie Schiffler
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Clement Lush
Editors: Norm Marion
Composer: Justin Sillman
The Review
Evel
I felt safest in Evel when Kari had someone to argue with, which is a strange feeling when that someone is the voice of the car holding her prisoner. Athena Park and Chris Farquhar make the banter funny enough to let you breathe and uneasy enough to keep you listening. The men with bats are easier to read, and the fights sometimes end before the fear has time to catch up. Give Kari a flare and a second to think, though, and I’m right back with her.
PROS
- Park’s sarcasm and Farquhar’s calm delivery make for an uneasy double act.
- The isolated highway and digital erasure give Kari’s captivity two kinds of dread.
- The cabin’s shift from prison to shelter makes you rethink where Kari is safest.
- The emergency flares give Park a satisfying moment of improvisation.
CONS
- The masked attackers feel under-equipped to threaten Kari inside the car.
- Some fights resolve before their suspense can build.
