Malevolence

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.

A group of bank robbers rendezvous at an old, abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. The crime didn't go exactly as planned, and with one robber dead, and a pair of hostages in tow, the crooks attempt to wait out the night.

What they don't know is that nearby, in a dilapidated slaughterhouse, is someone who is about to pay them a visit. As night falls, the group discovers that any legal troubles they might have, pale in comparison to what they will encounter.

MALEVOLENCE is a throwback to the days of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, and similar films. It has that "Anything could happen to anyone at any time" feel to it. Director Stevan Mena has made an homage to the classics here, adding a crime drama to the bloody mix. Recommended for lovers of the sort of horror / thrillers, that were made before the term "slasher film" was coined...

I understand it's an homage, I understand what it tries to do, but...if your way to homage some bad acting in old films is just replicating that, you will get...bad acting. The best way to do it would be to put some comic layer to it, but nop, it's just shockingky bad acting, and I'm not surprised that no one from this cast is currently a great actor.

Liked the score and the killer was alright, but the story is totally all over the place and the film is just not that interesting.

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.

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!