(2004/USA)
REVIEWED BY-STEVE GENIER DIRECTED BY-STEVAN MENA CAST-SAMANTHA DARK, R.BRANDON JOHNSON, HEATHER MAGEE, RICHARD GLOVER, COURTNEY BERTOLONE, JOHN RICHARD INGRAM and KEITH CHAMBERS. SOURCE-ANCHOR BAY DVD NTSC R1(2005)
After robbing a local bank, having it botched with the shooting of the mastermind behind the plans, Max. Julian and Marylin head out to meet up with Kurt who holds the money. Their plans are to meet in an old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. To hide out for a few days, slip up the money and then go on their separate ways. Of course plans never go accordingly as Kurt’s car develops a flat. He continues on foot until he hits a gas station, there he hijacks a minivan which includes a mother and daughter hostage team. Upon arrival at the house, Kurt sets up shop, bounding both Samantha and Courtney the mother and daughter who he kept as hostages. Courtney frees herself and runs for help, Kurt follows. She makes her way to an old slaughter house where an evil presence becomes a big thorn in the plans. A serial killer with a thrust for blood becomes all too aware of fresh kills. When Julian and Marylin finally show up at the house, there’s a deadly surprise waiting for them.
Imagine taken the shear realism of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and teaming it up terror of HALLOWEEN you pretty much sum up the total atomospheric feeling MALEVOLENCE amounts too. Director Stevan Mena, brings together his years of horror film fandom and generates a slick tribute to many classic scarefests. Sadly though all is not perfect with MALEVOLENCE as it’s pace tends to lag behind, give time for those ancy viewers to get restless from time to time. Given the nature of this films topic and genre flavor, one would expect to see more blood and guts or at least the gory pay-offs. Sure there are a few scenes that do give you a tease and set you up for something bigger, but things fall short of what potentials might have been.
All is not lost though as there are a few good scares and creepy moments that do make up for some of the more lacking elements. I must tip my hat off to Mena, given the fact that this director gave his all with not only directing MALEVOLENCE, but also writing it, editing and producing the film’s score as well. A score that strikingly resembles that of Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN with the shearing jolts and the synthetic overlays. Sets that resemble that of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and it’s slaughterhouse backgrounds. The killer was even something that weeded a cross section of the early years of FRIDAY’S Jason Vorhees strolling through THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. There is even a nod to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’S Freddy and his black and red sweater.
Though MALEVOLENCE was shot on a shoestring budget and a story that lagged, there was some pretty convincing acting house in it. Particularly the mother and daughter team of Samantha and Courtney. Both actors seemed highly professional and dedicated to performance values. Not to knock the rest of the cast, which all showed up with half deceit performances in their respective roles. But between Samantha’s blood curdling screams and Courtney’s ability to deal with the killer using that baseball bat, there rest seems distant in comparison. Mena does a deceit job with both directing the actors and writing their parts. The only lacking element that seems shallow is the back story of the killer. Though the explanation is there it seems hurried and very unimportant to the rest of the story’s development, which in my eyes is a total underachievement. This should be a close second to the film’s central plot, flowering out into the rest of the film’s development.
The Anchor Bay release of MALEVOLENCE is stacked with all sorts of goodies for those extras fiends. First, the film itself is apart of Anchor Bay’s Divimax series which houses both a Dolby digital 2.0 and 5.1 surround sound. Presented in an anamorphic 16x9 wide-screen aspect of 1.85:1. There is an audio commentary provided by director Stevan Mena, Brandon Johnson and Eddie Akmal who is an associated producer of MALEVOLENCE. The commentary is pretty standard dealing with the behind the scenes of the film. The meat of the disc after the main feature is a making of featurette entitle "Back To The Slaughterhouse". Basically spilling all the beans on how hard things were putting MALEVOLENCE together, a struggle as is in many low budget projects. Deleted scenes, stills gallery, other DVD releases from Anchor Bay and another smaller feature called "The Dark Side of Horror" where Samantha Dark is interviewed about her young career. There are also tv and radio spots, along with the film’s trailer as well. So, this is certainly a worth while DVD to invest in as it is not only a pretty deceit film, but there are also tons of other goodies to beef it up as well.
STORY/FILM-3 BITCH SLAPS PICTURE-4 BITCH SLAPS AUDIO-4 BITCH SLAPS EXTRAS-4 BITCH SLAPS OVERALL DVD-3.5 BITCH SLAPS
