Malevolence

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...

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.

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.

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.

I understand a lot of the hate this film gets here, it's derivative and not wildly original. However, I make the argument that, really this was a seriously low budget film that actually did I good job at what it set out to do.

I first saw this film as a kid, and as you might expect, it scared the SHIT out of me! It's very likely that the experience people who were in they're youth when they first saw the texas chainsaw massacre and halloween, was the same I had with this film. The mother/daughter relationship resonated with me and has always had a beep effected for me. And for that this film set out exactly to do what it set out to do. And even now as a young man, I still gravitate back to this movie even with my later exposure to bigger and better horror classics. It is in part very good at what it does and the love for 70s and 80s horror shines though.