Evilenko
2004 film directed by David Grieco
Evilenko is a 2004 English-language Italian crime horror thriller film very loosely based on the Ukrainian-born Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Written and directed by David Grieco in his theatrical feature directorial debut, the film stars Malcolm McDowell, Marton Csokas, and Ronald Pickup.
Plot
In 1984, in Kyiv, schoolteacher Andrej Romanovich Evilenko is dismissed from his position after attempting to rape a pupil. Driven by his psychopathic urges and embittered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Evilenko begins to rape, kill, and cannibalise women and children. It is hinted throughout the movie that Evilenko somehow gained the power to hypnotise his victims, which accounts for their lack of resistance and his continuous evasion of the authorities.
Vadim Timurouvic Lesiev, a magistrate and family man, is assigned to catch the serial killer. For years, Evilenko eludes Lesiev and psychiatrist Aron Richter, who is assigned to profile the killer. Richter eventually finds Evilenko with a little girl and manages to break Evilenko's hypnotic hold on her, but is killed by Evilenko in retaliation; although it appears to Evilenko that she is run over by a train, the girl escapes alive.
Almost two years later, Lesiev finally captures Evilenko, who by now has killed 55 people, mostly children and young women. On 22 May 1992, Evilenko goes to court, and on 14 February 1994, he is finally executed.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Evilenko” is 2004 film directed by David Grieco. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Evilenko, film and directed, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2004 film directed by David Grieco” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2659421. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 1984, 1992 and 1994.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Evilenko” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.