Todesengel - The Hexecutioners

I like this film, because it is a good surprise to me; I mean the scheme, the plot, that you won't see anywhere. That's what I expect the most in a film: being surprised. But the horror element was too much for my taste, I quite did not follow everything and the overall result is not my cup of tea. However, I repeat, this plot remains interesting, and it's a shame that is seems to be so underrated. I still don't know if I could recommend it to someone else, because this kind of scheme doesn't fit to everyone. But you can try, precisely for the offbeat story that this film proposes. Good effort and "courage" from the producers anyway.

I am not sure if anyone mentioned this but the lead's name was the first thing I picked up on... Malison, some might think its a combination of Melissa and Allison or Malory and Allison, but it comes from old latin (as if it could be anything else) Maledicere meaning to speak badly of a man or a male figure. However in the 13th century after Malison became gender neutral, and was being used more often, it took on a new meaning, in today's webster, the word Malison means CURSE, TO CURSE or CURSED.

So using it as a First Name, was creatively a good idea, I can see how it might have been overlooked by the audience, specially since Malison is not something one hears in a day to day conversation, besides it has largely been supplanted by its younger cousin MALEDICTION.

Alright, so this movie started out kind of good. Had a creepy moment in the beginning. Unfortunately this early moment was the best (and scariest) thing about the whole movie.

A shame, because this movie had potential. Sort of. But it's taken in the wrong direction, and just wasted. To be honest, for it to be better the whole plot should have developed in another direction. Meaning, you know, different plot.

It has decent acting, looks decent, but it's just too boring. Boring, and just doesn't add up. Being boring is the worst thing a movie can be, because movies exist solely to entertain.

So, to sum up, slow, boring, and almost nothing happens in this "horror" movie. Better luck next time.

A film that you would think would be asking questions on the morality of euthanasia, as this is the employment of the main characters, but no, it doesn't. It does start off doing so when we hear the brooding sermonising of Walter Bardon as the bible bellowing Mr Poole. Once Malison's out of the way we soon realise this becomes just a ghost story set around the ending of an old mans life by euthansia. Nothing really wrong with the opening scenes where we are introduced to the main characters: Liv Collins as Malison, a poverty stricken, conscientious novice who fouls up on her debut assignment in her new employment. And Sarah Power as Olivier, a professionally detatched, tough, badd-ass with 3 years service who gets partnered up with Malison on her next assignment to get her over her inept start. The competant acting arises some optimism for the rest of the film, but sadly this soon disolves when the ghosts start appearing and disappearing without doing much else but appear then disappear. This is where counting candles may become a suitable alternative to watching the lack of any worthwile action. In fact the most creepy creep around is the house steward, the son of the doomed owner, another well acted role. The final scenes, the expected demise of the owner of the house, rise to something which we would have hoped would have been the norm for the middle part. It is right out of Edgar Allan Poe territory, before the film loses it's way with a couple of more deaths, one not surprising but gruesome, and one surprising but less gruesome. The film rounds off with a rather pointless ending.

This film starts off fairly straightforward. Euthanasia has been legalized and two young, attractive women, who carry out this work, have been assigned a job at a large creepy mansion. It reveals that this place and it's owners are involved in some sort of dark Himalayan (I think) cult and it all gets very weird and hard to follow. Visually it's OK so rather try and understand the plot I just went along that. Strange film, I wouldn't waste my time trying to understand it with a second viewing.