The Hexecutioners

A murky horror picture in which two young women are despatched to a remote, creepy old house to assist its occupant in a mercy killing. Once there, they find that things are not quite what they seem. Weak and unfocused, with a very slow build to a confusing climax. The lead character will lose most viewers' sympathies early on when she abandons her pet cat in the countryside.

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.

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.

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.

The story centres on two young women recruited into a euthanasia company; Malison, (Liv Collins) a timid girl who does it because she needs the money; and Olivia, a cynical street-wise woman who, well, just does it. The job in hand just happens to be at the usual creepy Gothic mansion, overseen by the usual creepy keeper, Edgar, (Tim Burd) who instructs the women that the death must be carried out to a strict ritual.

It should be said that there is no problem with the acting which is superb, even by the minor characters, but some of the CGI is not so good and then there is the supernatural element when faceless figures appear and then there is the little girl. Also, some things do not add up. For instance, rooms which are pitch black suddenly have lots of lit candles - how does that happen? The ending, for me anyway, did not make much sense, but by then I was losing interest. A pity because it could have been different.