Malevolence (2003) User Reviews

A R-rated slasher flick, with a storyline, what more could u ask for?

[shane-168 · 6/10 · 29 July 2005]

I can't believe that people are trashing this film! If it's not the PG-13 horror film haters, which I'm one of those myself, it's people who expect some much from the little guys. This film wasn't handled by a multi-million dollar studio, it was handled by a true student of horror like, hmm, ourselves, with a little bit of money and an idea. I totally respect Mena for paying homage to films like: "The Town That Dreaded Sundown", "Psycho", and yes "Halloween", but folks give me a break! This film was good, violent, scary and had a storyline, two different plot points to be exact, along with a back story coming soon to theaters. Stay off these guys, they are one of us, one of the little guys who are trying to make Hollywood into what it used to be, to what we dreamed of, not what it has become.

"Malevolence", is a true horror film that everyone should watch! No it's not the best acted film I've ever seen, or the most horrific cinematic experience I've witnessed, but it's a true visceral, surrealistic film, that only the old 70's flicks could approach. Forget the lavishing special effects, with the beefy soundtracks packed with the latest heavy metal hits and hot models turned actresses. If you want to see a true gritty horror film, with big scares, large knives, synthesized effects and a potato bag wearing maniac, rent this puppy, she will deliver, I promise!

Entertaining

[mwold · 4/10 · 9 April 2005]

I just enjoyed this flick. However, having read the other reviews, I'm seriously wondering if viewers may have been on crack or are close friends with the director? Are they serious? No, seriously? I think that the best aspect of the movie is the fact that the director imbued it with so many MAJOR components of 80's B slasher flicks - the really bad synth music, the twisted ankle, the incessant screaming, the double twist ending - but without a hint of irony, which is rather difficult to do I would imagine! The tone is extremely deadpan. If someone had told me I was watching a horror movie made in 1988, I would have completely believed it - and is a very significant statement coming from someone like me by the way. Whether intentional or unintended, the movie works for both thrills and chills. Fun stuff - no second coming like a few other critics declare. An addendum to this story. My good friend left several messages recently for me indicating that she wanted to go to "Male Violence" - yes, several times she told me that we simply must see "Male Violence"? I asked her to spell it for me..."M- A-L-E-V-O-L-E-N-C-E"...."you haven't heard about Male Violence"? So in thanks to this movie I learned that my friend can't spell or really speak...wow.

More frustrating than entertaining

[Bel_Ebih · 5/10 · 22 April 2005]

I've been wanting to check this out since learning that it won Best Feature at the 2003 NYC Horror Film Festival. Now after watching it I'm guessing every other film it was competing against must've REALLY sucked.

Malevolence is in no way a bad film, yet it's just not that good either. The concept of mixing a robbery-gone-wrong story with a slasher film is pretty original, but this only makes it's heavy use of slasher clichés drag it down into mediocrity. What would be perfectly acceptable idiotic behavior from stupid teenagers in a fun slasher film, becomes unbearably frustrating because one would expect more from the unconventional characters portrayed here.

As the film stumbles forward through all the usual "scares" of the genre, I only became more and more frustrated by how a good idea is just thrown out the window in order to fall back on things that have been done to death (and much better) 25 years ago. All this is topped off by a soundtrack that was obviously intended to be "old-school" yet comes off as just really annoying and repetitive.

Still, as far as low-budget indie horror flicks go, Malevolence is decently shot, and while it does bring in a new mix to the formula, it immediately waters it down by simply not doing anything worth-while with it.

Malevolently annoying

[Nimmloth · 15 August 2011]

Trusting some good reviews here I went ahead and watched Malevolence not expecting anything great but just looking for some entertaining slasher movie. If you add some imagination the very beginning of the movie might be quite intriguing, but once the actual plot develops it just annoys the hell out of you. The acting is miserable, the storyline is so predictable and shallow that there were some parts when I thought well?...maybe it's supposed to seem predictable and there's going to be some cool and unexpected twist now...Uh.Okay. Perhaps now?..No?..So I naively kept expecting and kept being constantly disappointed. Oh, and I must say I did jump out of my seat a few times - but not because I was scared, it was because of the music effects that can give you a serious headache. All in all, could have been an OK movie if it wasn't for pathetically poor acting and a storyline a ten year old kid could write.

Atmosphere and not much else

[bherring24 · 4/10 · 7 April 2005]

This movie's eerie, I'll give it that. But scary? Sadly, no.

A bank robbery goes wrong, the survivors rendezvous at a house, someone evil is in the house. Bank robbery aside, this movie has been done. And done. Many, many times before. I respect the fact that the movie was shot for practically nothing and that it represents a noble attempt to return to those halcyon days in the horror genre when killings were brutal, the production decidedly unpolished and, for the most part, the movie terrifying. But rather than paying homage to films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Malevolence" adds nothing to them. "Continuing in the tradition of" is very different from "aping."

Ultimately, this movie is more Greek tragedy than horror. Things start off at a turning point for the characters, things fall apart, people die. What the movie's lacking is a real sense of horror. It's awfully hard to be scared when everything happens right on schedule.

Horrible

[darktress · 1/10 · 20 September 2004]

I also was at Horrorfind 2004 in Maryland and went with other two people that commented on here to this movie. I have to say, I'm glad I didn't pay any money to see it.

This movie looked very promising and it was a huge let down. The acting wasn't good, the lead lady was annoying and all I could think was when was she going to die. She couldn't seem to decide whether she wanted to have a British accent or not.

The dialogue was terrible and the story was very lacking. The music was redundant and loud, not suspenseful like it was meant to be. It was a huge let down.

We were asked before the movie started that if we had some positive comments about the movie to please go to the cameras at the end of the film...I only saw one women go to the cameras...Everyone else walked out of the theatre shaking their heads...They all looked disappointed.

This movie isn't worth the view...and nowhere near a good horror film.

A real HACK job...of film-making.

[JJBrent · 1/10 · 24 April 2005]

I knew exactly how I wanted to review this film until I read most of the reviews here. Now, I'm almost at a loss for words but that won't last long. I have a few things that need saying. What set me back were all of the positive reviews praising this movie. To me, that was more shocking than anything the movie attempted to deliver. Many reviewers have pointed out, and I agree, that the positive reviews are most likely the director himself, signing up a bunch of IMDb accounts. Note that those reviews are from persons who have reviewed only one film, MALEVOLENCE. Curious, don't you think? To be honest, I wouldn't take the time to sign up just to talk about this movie. But, I have an account so, here goes:

The DVD starts up with classic trailers like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Carpenter's Halloween. WTF? If it's a matter of Anchor Bay distributing them it's one thing, unfortunately, I think it was an attempt to somehow hypnotize us into thinking what was about to unfold would be forever linked to those classics. BULL(expletive deleted)!

The most tragic thing about this film is the fact that the opening story scroll is ominous with it's use of statistics regarding missing persons. I was actually drawn in for a brief moment. The scene with the woman chained up and the boy being brought in, revealed when the sack holding him was opened, hinted that this was a dark journey and it got me expecting a psychological thriller. Even the murder of the woman as seen by the boy (complete with parts of the framework of the house obstructing the view) was well done.

Then what happened? I could trash the acting all day long but, I'll give the players the benefit of a doubt. Some of our best actors have had directors who coaxed dead pan performances. It's been known to happen. I won't waste any time on that issue other than to say that this film would not serve any of them well as a reference.

Early on, the most interesting character is killed off. He's got a small part but he should've been a driving force for the action of the film. Nothing after his death works. The motivations of the characters are all wrong. Come on, a mother who has been kidnapped with her daughter (who manages to escape) falls asleep after some feeble struggling? Give me a break! Maternal instinct alone dictates that that woman would rip her flesh to get free. There would be no stopping her. Other than the young girl, there is not a single protagonist in this movie. We're supposed to feel for the man who was reluctant to participate in the robbery but, he participated and deserves what's coming to him. Be it from the law or a deranged killer.

The entire film is a rip-off of much better films. Every attempt at a "jump" scene is old and tired. Come on, we know the killer is going to get up when the others aren't looking. I want a movie where, when the victim gets the drop on the killer, they keep pounding, slashing, kicking and pummeling him until there's no possible way he could get up. (See Bruce Willis in Sin City, attaboy!)

There's been bragging about the low budget and the resulting "high quality" of the film despite it. I'm not seeing it here. I commented to my wife about the incredibly crappy soundtrack (plink, plink, synth string chords, blah blah blah). How shocked I am to see so many reviews complimenting it. (Mostly due to some comment padding by people involved, no doubt). In all honesty, this movie is made worse than it needs to be because of all of the false hype.

Overall, the best experience of the evening was the trailers that preceded the feature. As a child, I saw the same Halloween trailer in the theater and was scared out of my mind. It was interesting to see how it still had the same effect. Shame on Anchor bay for packaging the DVD so beautifully. They sold me on the movie with that alone. Shame on Anchor Bay for putting those trailers on the DVD as well. Shame on Stevan Mena for hyping his film and himself so much that God Himself couldn't live up to it. Movies have changed. I know Mana doesn't like the "Hip" modern horror films. Most people don't. However, there are examples of where to find success. SE7EN, for example: You don't witness a single murder (unless you count Pitt shooting John Doe) on screen. It's all psychological. The first SAW was similar in it's execution. Now those are scary movies.

If Mena set out to make a slasher flick paying homage to (or ripping off) the greats, he succeeded. If he set out to make a film to match the greats, he failed. If he wanted to make something amazing and groundbreaking, he failed miserably. I do wish him luck, however. You need passion first. That, he has. But, I beg, please, please don't make those other two Malevolence movies. Do something better with whatever budget you are given.

In the movie, after all the main carnage is over and we're supposed to feel at ease, mom has a nightmare and wakes up screaming to find that her daughter has entered the room. She cannot sleep because of the horrific ordeal. She gets in bed with her mom and smiles. Sure, I walk into my mom's room and she lets out a blood curdling scream. I feel safer now.

I notice that there were two films called Malevolent released last year. IMDb designates films and even people that have the same name with roman numerals to differentiate them. The other film was # I. Very fitting, because this movie is definitely # II.

tense, though derivative, unkillable slasher movie

[FieCrier · 7/10 · 28 April 2005]

No, it's not terribly original.

It is certainly reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc. in many ways. Oddly, it also called to mind for me a recent movie: Dead Birds (2004), which also started with a bank robbery where people got shot, and the robbers holed up at an abandoned house they knew about, where they get picked off by evil. Unlike Dead Birds, there's nothing supernatural in the movie apart from the killer's ability to take a licking and keep on ticking, but that's nothing new for a slasher.

The first storyline we are introduced to is that someone has been abducting children and killing them. Years later, a woman watches her daughter playing softball.

We also meet a young couple, and they along with the girl's brother and another man are going to rob a bank of about a half of a million dollars. The boyfriend needs the money to pay off loan sharks (I think), otherwise he wouldn't be in it. They're to meet up at an abandoned house where they will split the money and then split up themselves.

The couple and the brother are in one car, the other man is on his own. His car gets a flat, for which he is evidently unprepared, and he carjacks an SUV, which belongs to the mother and her softball-playing daughter, who are forced to come along with him. The three of them make it to the abandoned house first, and violence erupts.

The weakest part of the movie for me were the musical "stings" when the killer shows up or proves to be missing. They were pretty cheesy, to the point of spoof almost.

While the movie isn't very original, I nevertheless felt it was pretty good, and am surprised at some of the hostility towards this movie by other users. That said, if you're going to watch one bank robbers killed by evil in an abandoned house horror movie from 2004, I think Dead Birds is the more interesting one.

Piece of crap

[jhanyen · 1/10 · 1 November 2004]

This movie is such a piece of garbage. It is a total rip off of TCM for one. The screener that I saw even had Leatherface saying how good this movie was. (they must have gave him a lot of money) It starts out with a crappy plot about a bank robbery gone bad and the brother of the girlfriend gets shot. From there he dies in the car and the two main characters talking about find soft ground to bury him in. Soon afterward they are putting their clothes back on. WTF! What did they do with the body that they had to put their clothes back on!! Not to mention the killer in the movie wears a pillow case on his head which is just plain silly. And like any horror movie you think he is dead a bunch of times and he gets back up and pops up later. A very unoriginal plot and music that will make your ear drums bleed. I was watching this outdoors with about 40 other ppl and every time some suspenseful music came on everybody groaned because the music actually hurt our ears. Awful Awful movie do not waste your money.

Many are far too hard on this film...

[Thomas_Mallory · 7/10 · 9 May 2005]

I can understand why so many people disliked this movie. It's not as slick, fast moving as a lot of the newer horror films. It doesn't have state-of-the-art gore and special effects. The script is simple, the direction is a bit slow. We've seen the idea before in a way. But in a way, it's nice to see it again.

We all love the classic old horror movies. The ones that were made in a time when the scripts, characters, and style was completely believable. At least for the time period, anyways. These old movies at the time turned the genre on their ear and gave audiences things that hadn't been seen before, fear they hadn't felt before. Malevolence goes back to that. Unfortunately for the director, it has been seen and felt before.

There is, however, plenty about this movie to like. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but the acting was solid (better than standard b-movie fare, regardless of previous gripes), the story was completely "this could actually happen," and the theme of the film draws in childhoods and real life issues.

The thing that hooked me most about this film is the fact that I have a 4 year old child, and watching it's mother/child dynamic really helped bring a sense of fear to the film. It wasn't overt; I didn't jump out of my seat or cry ever during the film, but the dynamic did aide in its personal effect on me.

In conclusion, the film had enough classic horror elements to make it a worthy attempt at recreating the standard horror film formula, with just enough new elements to create a differential. There were some key spots "ripped" from films, such as the fist through the door scene, the stereotypical Michael Myers / Jason Voorhees killer aesthetic, and the Night of the Living Dead hero death. But it was still a good job all around, with atmosphere, cinematography, and acting.

What are you people smoking?

[blart23 · 1/10 · 12 August 2012]

I rate movies based on whether or not Im scared/entertained. I do not care what the budget is or if the director is "one of the little guys." You don't score points just for trying. With that said, this movie was complete crap. There was nothing scary about it. The fact that people have used it in the same sentence as TCM or Halloween is absolutely astounding (yes, we all know the director had friends and family post reviews here). The plot was boring and slow and there were zero scares. I go into movies looking to have fun, so I don't care if the acting is bad or the storyline not the best. But this movie was just plain flatout boring.

A homage to grindhouse eighties slasher films

[burstbloom · 10/10 · 26 April 2005]

First off I have to say that I rented this at Blockbuster thinking it would be a piece of crap. I'm a huge horror buff so I pretty much rent anything genre related, even if it is a turd. Especially if it has Anchor Bay on it. I've seen my share of slasher films so I immediately felt like I was in familiar territory.

The film starts out with a little boy being forced to watch a young lady stabbed repeatedly. Then the film gets into a bank robbery that doesn't turn out and has the criminals fleeing to an old abandoned house. One of the hostages manages to escape and leads them into an abandoned slaughterhouse where a demented serial killer is shacking up.

One thing I noticed about this indie flick that sets it above others is that you can watch it on your plasma screen TV in HD. The sound is great when you blast it on 5.1 and just feel the vibrations from the bass heavy score. It makes you feel very unsettled. The camera work on this is a lot different from most other horror films, more than once I was treated to beautiful scenic lingering shots. You can tell a lot of work went into the sound and atmosphere.

The acting is a little hammy in spots but the cast of unknowns are very believable. I was relieved that the newest twenty something teen/TV star wasn't running around acting scared and spouting catch phrases. The acting is mature and serious. There's no self referential humor that is usually found in horror flicks these days. The whole thing is dead serious and reminded me a lot of another great slasher film I saw recently called Wrong Turn. A solid horror film looking to make you squirm and jump from what you see & hear. That's what I used to love about grindhouse horror films, they didn't try to be hip and make you laugh, they went for the throat. Malevolence is a return to this style of film making. That's not to say there aren't clichés but it blends them into such a provocative cocktail, it is kind of like reliving the good old glory days of horror.

With all the PG-13 teeny bopper nonsense doing so well these days Malevolence is like a breath of fresh air. The slaughterhouse location was creepy as hell and all of the stuff you see in the slaughterhouse was found on location and utilized on the set. This gives it a visceral punch, none of the sets look fake ala the new TCM remake.

The horror in Malevolence exists on a lot of different levels, the characters themselves are not purely "good" or "evil" and it is sometimes hard to feel for some of them. I found myself conflicted over if I was scared for some of them to die or if I wanted to see them gutted like a deer. The characters are anything but cardboard that's for sure.

Easily said that if you like Halloween, the town that dreaded sundown, Just Before Dawn, The Prowler, The Burning or Madman you will definitely love this. I have seen my share of slashers and this is the best of the recent pack. I know the genre has been done to death but there's still a lot of meat on the bones and Steven Mena does a great job of proving this.

For all the real horror fans out there, open your mind and give it a shot. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. My only regret is that I didn't go watch it in the theater when it was playing here in Toronto.

I look forward to the director's next effort.

Very good i say

[DUKE1 · 7/10 · 27 January 2006]

I had looked forward to seeing this film for a while after reading about it. I thought this was a solid film from start to finish. It borrowed from others but in a very respectful way.

I think a lot of the other post here are very hard for no good reason. If you want to see a very good horror film this one is better then some of the more recent Box office releases of late.

I never felt the acting was ever that bad. Thought the story was tight and the writing fine, Not sure of the budget but did not have a cheap look or feel to it.

Take a chance rent this one. I hope to see more from the filmmaker.

Good thing it was free.....

[bloodyfreak13 · 2/10 · 31 August 2004]

I had the displeasure of viewing a screening of this movie at the recent Horrorfind Weekend Convention in Hunt Valley, MD. I had high hopes because Anchor Bay is a great company that usually puts out great movies. Unfortunately this was not the case. The movie was boring, the music was annoying, and the story line was lacking some good content. I will say that the acting wasn't too bad, but the bad story line didn't help them any. If the writer would have stuck with how the movie started out, and played along with that story, then it would have been one amazing movie.

The first 5 minutes made it look extremely promising, but it went down hill after that. This is one I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of. After the screening they wanted us to say good things about the movie to the camera, but I'm sorry to say that even though I so wanted to, I couldn't because of the let down of the movie. Steven Mena does have some good potential though as a director, but he might want to leave the writing up to someone else.

Malevolence

[JohnnyMurderously · 25 January 2005]

I see the director has a lot of friends to pad this place with glowing reviews.

There's nothing original about it. Nothing shocking. Nothing much at all except laughable synth stabs and a lot of unused set-ups. They waste twenty minutes setting up this robbery, go out of their way to point out that the ringleader planned to betray and murder his underlings... and they have the ringleader get killed in the robbery, so the planned betrayal never factors. They go through some contrived plot points to have the killer dress up like one of the members of the gang... and that goes nowhere. Too bad, because there was some genuine potential in the story, what with the four gang-members played off against one another, having to deal with hostages *and* a crazed murderer, but none of it goes anywhere. In the end, it's everybody against the killer, and that's been done to death.

And the killer? What, some 16 year old kid? Hell, I would've just wrung his little neck.

Don't waste your time. Go see 'Saw', a movie handed down to James Wan by the Lord above Himself.

Stevan Mena, your movie sucks. Tell your mom to quit posting reviews here.

Forgettable slasher.

[ThrownMuse · 4/10 · 11 March 2007]

After a bank robbery doesn't go as planned, the criminals seek refuge in an isolated abandoned house. Soon the robbers and their two hostages find themselves terrorized by a madman. This movie is like a combination of two other horrors released around the same time: "Dead Birds" and "Toolbox Murders." Unfortunately, it isn't as effective as either of those films. The director and many reviewers have claimed this is a return to the gritty 70s style of horror film-making, but I found this to be more like your average 80s slasher. However, it doesn't have that ambiance that a film could only have by being created in the 80s. It isn't nearly as entertaining. I watched parts of the Director's commentary, and all of the things he pointed out as "homages" are things that have been done so many times that they most fans would probably take them as genre clichés and not homages. The most irritating part about this movie (besides the average acting) is the musical score. For the most part, it is eerie and subtle. However, whenever something scary happens, someone goes wild with the Casio, and the effects are grating. While "Malevolence" isn't a terrible movie, I'd honestly rather sit through an 80s slasher than a modern film that tries too hard to recapture that era.

Bit the big one

[davidw001 · 1/10 · 30 April 2005]

Totally derivative. Nothing original here. No story, no suspense, no gore, no thrills, no chills. This is my first review here and I felt it fitting to use it to warn others off from this film. It's not a terrible film, it's just one that has been done better a thousand times. The best part is watching and naming what movie each scene was ripped off from. The beginning, think Dusk to Dawn, with bad acting and totally unlikable and obnoxious characters goes on forever. Most of the remaining film is a blatant TCM rip-off, think remote location, abandoned buildings. The dialog at the end between the local police and the FBI is laughable at best. Troll 2 had better dialog than this crap. Oh, yeah, be prepared for a ride all right, a ride in your oldest sisters broken down VW van, uphill all the way with the air conditioner on and the windows wide open.

Incredibly Boring

[mappingprincess · 1/10 · 22 November 2004]

This was possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. It was so boring that I had my car keys in hand, ready to leave 30 minutes into it. The people I was with thought it may get better so we stayed. It was a complete waste of time and money. The acting was horrible, the plot was predictable, and the music was so annoying. All these people who are comparing this movie to TCM, Halloween, and Psycho are complete idiots. This goes into the genre of Blairwitch: a movie that gives the horror genre a bad name.

Come on Stevan Mena, we have seen the masked killer and heard the lame music a million times all as an attempt to scare people. Get real. It is 2004. I think we are all beyond those infantile means of being scared. Do the genre and us a favor--- scrap the other 2 in this trilogy.

well done horror film.

[figure_four_headlock · 6/10 · 24 June 2004]

If you're looking for talented actors, superb dialogue, and excellent character development... maybe Malevolence isn't your movie. However, if you want to be scared out of your chair, biting your nails or get another great slasher flick under your belt, see this movie. Mena's brilliant score moves very smoothly along with Kimoto's cinematography, the villain is almost a solid example of the typical deranged killer (always nice), and to be honest, the story isn't too cheesy to enjoy. All in all, Stevan Mena has put together a very good slasher film. The mediocre acting, predictable falls from key characters and the sociopath murderer all fall into place to make a great scary movie; and on top of that, it's an original idea! You don't get too many of those from indie filmmakers in Wilmington.

Hell, I can't wait for the sequel.

Garbage

[eurohim · 1/10 · 1 September 2004]

I was one of the many that was offered a free showing at midnight during Horrorfind 2004 in Maryland. I saw that Anchor Bay was doing it and I think Anchor Bay is great so I decided to forgo some sleep and go check out this flick they're going to release theatrically. OMG, this is a huge snoozer. I can't imagine a more generic slasher than this piece of crap. Everything was bad about it! The acting was awful, the story was rubbish, the music was annoying and repetitive, and everything was predictable as well. If I weren't responsible for getting 4 people back to the hotel I would have walked out...now that I think of it I should have went to sleep in the theater.

When we got back we spoke/overheard several Horrorfind attendees who have seen the movie and I'd say about 90% were singing this movie's shortcomings. The people that didn't go were happy they stayed at the hotel to drink. I'm sure if I were drunk the movie would have been better. I could say more, but this 'film' doesn't deserve it.

Slow start but effective second

[Stevieboy666 · 6/10 · 3 October 2017]

A bank robbery goes wrong & the offenders plus a couple of hostages find themselves at a country hideaway, only to be stalked by a maniac who looks like the killer from "The Town that Dreaded Sundown", or Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th pre hockey mask. Apart from an horrific opening the first half hour plays like a crime thriller but after that, once the killer starts going about his grisly business the film then turns gradually into an effective slasher. The relatively low body count may not go down with more hardcore slasher fans but this film does pack in a fair amount of suspense. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th & Halloween are obvious influences, but that's no bad thing. No complaints about the acting either. Well worth seeing alongside it's superior prequel "Bereavement" (2010).

A couple having an argument isn't horror

[i_am_santa_claus · 1/10 · 11 March 2009]

Oh. Dear. Lord. This movie is painful to watch.

After a failed bank heist, Mary and Some Guy Whose Name I Don't Think Ever Gets Mentioned (so, of course, he lives through pretty much the whole movie) scream at each other for what feels like hours (but, seeing as the movie's only 85 minutes long, it's probably only a little more than an hour) about how everything got screwed up. Mary and Some Guy even change their arguments and switch sides repeatedly, just so they'll be able to keep screaming at each other. It's like Revolutionary Road but without the capable actors.

(And why is it every time there's a Mary in a horror movie, she's a bitch? Jerry always dies and Mary's always a bitch.)

Anyway, eventually they have to save Some Lady and her daughter Courtney from a guy who's going around killing people (including the bank heist partner who kidnapped Some Lady and Courtney). The whole masked killer aspect of the movie is an afterthought to Mary and Some Guy's shouting matches. 'Cause people watch horror movies to watch people argue, obviously.

First of all, I figured out who the killer was before the movie even really started. Oops. Next time, guys, don't hammer obvious answers in our faces.

Second of all, there's a character we see at age six and age seventeen. At six his eyes are such a dark brown they're almost black. At seventeen his eyes are almost bluer than mine. People's eyes don't change colors; have the filmmakers never heard of vanity contact lenses?

Third of all, are we supposed to be rooting for Mary and Some Guy? 'Cause I hate them. Mary especially, but Some Guy is no picnic. And their relationship is ill defined. I think they're supposed to be a couple because in the scene that introduces them Mary kisses Some Guy's neck a couple of times. If it weren't for that, though, I would have never made the connection because they don't seem to like each other at all. And it really, really rings false when Some Guy is all sad when he finds out Mary's been killed. You'd think he'd be relieved that she isn't around to insult him anymore. I know I was relieved.

My last big complaint about the movie is that it ends and then there's about five minutes of unnecessary exposition. And then there's another ending featuring two jump scares, one of which shouldn't have been.

Okay, sorry, no, I have one more big complaint about the movie. All the parts that would have been actually pretty atmospheric and creepy are completely squashed by obnoxious jump chords, just so the audience knows absolutely for sure something creepy is going on. It's as though the filmmakers don't trust their viewers enough to see what's going on, so they put a blast of music in there for good measure. Unfortunately, all that did was destroy any moment that would have been effective.

Jump chords aren't scary, people. They're annoying, and they force reactions. I hate jump chords. They're proof that filmmakers think their audience is stupid.

Infuriatingly underrated...

[Clickety-Clack · 9/10 · 16 December 2006]

Some horror fans are complete snobs...I just don't get them. On one hand, they'll praise a film like CABIN FEVER to high heavens, and then on the other they'll trash a film like MALEVOLENCE. Funny...I thought this was a great little horror movie, and far better than any of the mediocre fare that has been released to theaters recently.

Granted, the plot is nothing new: A bunch of people (in this case a gang of thieves and a kidnapped mom and child) are stalked and killed off by a hooded killer (in this case the demented disciple of a Satan-worshipping mass murderer) in a secluded setting (in this case an abandoned farmhouse in the country). Yep, nothing new at all.

But what I loved about MALEVOLENCE was its sheer refusal to play any of this for laughs. The truth is, this sort of thing has been done so many times most filmmakers would probably feel the need to poke fun at themselves while they're doing it. But the filmmakers here smartly go for the opposite approach and try to emulate the gritty 70's style of THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE. OK, so it never reaches that level of intensity, but there are some genuine chills here, and I absolutely loved the country atmosphere, which was suitably menacing.

Seriously, folks--lighten up. For a low-budget, direct-to-video (but shot on film--hooray!) slasher this is really, really good. I wish it could've gotten a theatrical release--it would've been panned by braindead critics (who automatically give these sort of films bad reviews anyway) but it still deserved to be showcased like many other, lesser horror films are. See it.

A Halloween Rip Off That Gets It Right

[davidkennedy-91087 · 7/10 · 24 July 2019]

After Halloween, there were 5,000 rip offs and not many of them came close to the brilliance of that film, but Malevolence finally gets the homage right and also manages to do its own thing and stand out on its own.

A group of bank robbers hold a mother and daughter hostage, steal their car, and hide out at a seemingly abandoned farmhouse that's inhabited by psychotic killer with a fetish for Jason in Friday the 13th Part 2.

With its droning synths, silent killer, lack of blood and guts, and creepy blue moonlight, Malevolence channels the original Halloween the best it can while also borrowing from a few of the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies.

The characters aren't always the most defined or interesting, but there's more suspense and scares than expected, especially in this kind of movie.

No real sense of fear

[Eraser81 · 4/10 · 22 April 2005]

I almost paid to see this at the theater. After renting it last night I'm glad I went with the latter.

After a bank robbery doesn't go quite as planned, some thieves end up at the hideaway where they were to divide the cash. Only problem is, the hideaway is very close to a slaughterhouse where a sadistic killer lurks. Not only are the criminals in danger, but also a couple of innocent bystanders being held captive.

While watching this movie you might see things that remind you of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th Part 2 while it sounds a little like Halloween at times.

If this movie ever makes it way to cable then you might want to check it out, but I wouldn't recommend buying it.