dusan-22 This was a pretty scary and very decent horror movie! Director insists very much on John Carpenter Halloween style, but still the movie has its own rhythm which is soo creepy! I love the way that director plays with the camera - it is so tense! Done in the classic slasher style scenes are not made in modern explicit bloody ways full of fountain blood splashes. Still they are much more scary than any other Hollywood horror movie I have seen for a very long time. Once again, director goes too far with imitating good old John from time to time with Michael Myers image, music and even identical scenes from time to time. Still, I am nicely surprised by this movie and the reason I am posting a comment is because I believe that this flick is unfairly underrated.

BA_Harrison Four desperate bank-robbers flee the scene of their crime, agreeing to regroup at a predetermined rendezvous point, a deserted house in the sticks, to divvy up the spoils. The introduction of a pair of unaccounted-for hostages throws a major spanner in the works, but nowhere near as much as the fact that the gang's hideout lies adjacent to the lair of a vicious serial killer.Stevan Mena's micro-budget horror Malevolence is an homage to three of the most influential scary movies of the 70s and 80s—The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, and Friday the 13th—and as such, originality certainly isn't its strong point; but even though the directorial techniques, visual style, score and general atmosphere will be overly familiar to most fans of the genre, Mena's handling of his material is confident, considered and surprisingly effective, offering viewers plenty of well crafted scares, characters you can actually care about, and a very memorable bogeyman: Leatherface, Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees all rolled into one!Those who are only familiar with contemporary major-studio horror might be disappointed by Malevolence's low-budget aesthetic; others will no doubt accuse the film of ripping off the classics rather than paying tribute to them. I, on the other hand, applaud Mena and pals for not giving a toss about such matters and just getting on with the job at hand: delivering a good old-fashioned scary slasher without even a hint of humour or irony to dilute its impact.

slayrrr666 "Malevolence" is a thoroughly disappointing and average slasher effort.**SPOILERS**Attempting to get by in life, Marilyn, (Heather Magee) and Julian, (Brandon Johnson) decide to accompany bank-robbers Max, (Keith Chambers) and Kurt, (Richard Glover) on a special mission, only for them to get injured and split up during the process. While one group tends to the wounded, the other kidnaps Samantha Harrison, (Samantha Dark) and her daughter Courtney, (Courtney Bertolone) and takes them to the safe-house in the countryside. When the others get there, they find only the hostages with no explanation of what's going on. As they struggle to understand what's going on, a series of strange events has them convinced something's wrong, and they soon find out that a serial killer is next door to their hideout and is slowly stalking and killing them one-by-one, forcing them to evade him before they all fall victim.The Good News: There was a few good points to this. One of the main pluses is the exceedingly high-quality of the stalking going on here, as there's a lot to like within them. The first, where the robber walks-through the abandoned house, with its look-of-disuse, dust and general-disrepair effectively selling its abandoned state, the amount of food left-out and the scum-filled bathroom, coupled with the silence combining into a rather entertaining stalking-sequence, and once the killer appears, the scene concludes with a bang. Another big one is the solo-walk-through of the hideout, where the breaking-glass initiates a walk around a darkened house, up a staircase into the blackness, followed by a lot of fun on the second-level. With encounters in several rooms, use of squeaking, closing doors behind them and the conclusion where the killer slowly materializes out-of-the-darkness behind the oblivious victim and the ensuing encounter all makes for big success. The main stalking scene, though, is the later walk-through of the house where the descent into the basement comes complete with a flickering light-bulb that turns off-and-on intermittently, making for some great shadow-play along the walls during the course of the scene, and again it comes complete with a great killer's appearance that works very well overall. That it's not over there, where the discovery of the dead body in the closet for a scare and then comes the shock appearance and their capture is a lot of fun and works well. The basement sequence is really nice, where the escape from the killer is handled well, the tactics used are nice and the setting itself is rather creepy, and the second one, where the discovery of the skeletal remains and eventual bone-altar are superb scenes. The finale is perhaps the best part of the film, with a fantastic confrontation in the car, including seeing the killer sneak-up in the windows behind them, and the race to get the keys in the house results in a getaway and a big confrontation in the house, which is really well-done and features a lot of great stuff to work it over nicely. The last plus to this one is the initial premise, which is an original scenario that could've worked nicely here, with a few minor twists. These are all that work here.The Bad News: There was some pretty big flaws to this one that keeps it down. One of the main issues is the fact that there's just no way around the fact that the film is just so off-kilter in its pacing that it's hard to get invested in what's going on. Owed mainly to the length of time spent before it actually manages to get to the farmhouse, other issues are still present and really make this stand out. The biggest part of this is that getting-to-the-farm, since the parts before are just so lengthy that it spreads the film out. Taking the family hostage at the gas station is a prime example, going on way longer than necessary, from the fumbling around in the equipment bag to the mother in the store and finally coming back out to the car and realizing what's happened all amounts to a lengthy sequence that is far longer than necessary for the type. Also important is the couple and all of their arguments, from inside the car over the responsibility for the failed robbery and how to take care of the wounded to who got them lost and how to handle the situation, as well as their later bickering once they get there over just about anything. These are irritating to watch and just plains time-consuming so as to really remove just about any time it could have later on. Since the body count is so low to begin with, the fact that only a small amount of time can be spent on the killing that it is an eternity between kills, spreading the time out even more. The kills are even more problematic in that they're just so edited into confusion that it's impossible to determine what's going on during them. Either there's no blood at all other than aftermath shots that aren't graphic at all or the attempts at being graphic are hampered by the decision to make it impossible to see what's going on that they lose their impact. The killer himself is a total joke, with merely a series of bandage-gauze constituting his mask and the lack of information makes it impossible to be fearful of him. The last flaw here is the lack of the bank-robbery on-screen, as the sound-effects and visual-cheats to determine it are a total cheat and just hard to get around. These here are what's wrong with this one.The Final Verdict: Marred by some big flaws, this one is somewhat lowered by those and really can't bring itself up from the positives it has. Really only recommended for the most discerning slasher completists or those interested, while the majority out there won't find the positives worthwhile enough over the flaws.Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence

bababear There's nothing original in MALEVOLENCE. That's not very bad in and of itself. But slavish devotion to convention- somebody must say this, someone else must do that, this must happen- bogs it down and there's a terrible stumble at the end that almost lets the air out of the whole project.Before the main titles we see a boy and girl being held captive in a basement some ten years before the main action begins. The boy sees a hooded figure kill the girl. Close up on his face watching the action. Hey, do you think we might see him again? In the present day we meet four very unpleasant characters who are going to rob a bank. Naturally one gets shot. The getaway car has a flat tire.Cut to a mother and her young daughter Courtney at a baseball game. They stop to buy ice cream and meet up with one of the robbers, who kidnaps them and takes the car with mother and daughter as hostages.Soon we're at the hideout, an abandoned farmhouse conveniently close to the torture house we visited before the opening titles.The little girl escapes, and the things you'd expect to happen do so. The characters you expect to die, die; the characters you expect to live, live.What's good about this is that it's wonderfully visualized. The night scenes are dark and grain free, and there's a great musical score. Yes, it's a synthesizer. But it and the camera-work are the best things about the film.Spoilers ahead. Be warned.This doesn't have the standard three act structure. There's the opener ten years ago. The main action starts one afternoon, the bulk of it takes place that night, and there's a really awkward coda at the end.Of all the characters, Mary is the most irritating. She talks her boyfriend into participating in the robbers with her brother and one of his buddies. She's manipulative and bossy. Imagine Lucy from Peanuts speaking with occasional foul language. Ideally she'd be one of the last to die. Instead, she's skewered about halfway through the film.Both mother and daughter get to knock out the hooded maniac pursuing them. You'd think that in that situation they'd take whatever object was at hand and completely smash his head in and kneecap him for good measure. No. They're good people, but the director can't let them end the story that soon.At the end the mother and daughter are rescued by the police. The last surviving bank robber, who has turned out to be a better man than we thought by helping the kidnap victims, walks out the front door holding a gun and falls in a hail of bullets. Irony! Then the sheriff and an FBI man talk. And talk. And talk. New characters are introduced in the last ten minutes, after the main story has finished. Not a good idea.The last new character introduced wears a suit and tie, so we know he's an authority figure. He reads aloud from the journals of the first maniac to let us know that the boy we saw in the opening grew up and got very strong and killed maniac # 1 and took his place as maniac #2 continuing the string of kidnappings and murder.So for an hour the director mainly follows the rule of show, don't tell, then violates that rule like mad.Finally we see the mother and daughter back in their own home. The phone rings. It's the FBI. Oh, and they casually mention that they still haven't found the $450,000 from the robbery. Hey, there's a gym bag in the house that has the money in it. Irony, man, more irony.Mom falls asleep and has a bad dream. She wakes up, she and her daughter are fine, they can get a good night's sleep. As they are drifting off we see a door open behind them.Nope. It's been clearly established that there's no supernatural element at work here. Maniac # 1 was killed by # 2. And #2 was killed by lead poisoning- bullets. They work very effectively on flesh and blood. Both killers are dead, as are all four bank robber/kidnappers.So why did the door open? It's the rules- you've got to leave room for a sequel. Although it's been done literally hundreds of time, someone behind the camera thought this would be a 'surprise' ending. No. Because the camera continued rolling, we knew that something would be coming up.There's a sequel coming. I wish the creative forces the very best of luck on it.