Blu-ray/DVD Review: Malevolence

October is the perfect month to dive into some good horror movies. Temperatures are starting to drop, the nights are getting longer, and the whole thing culminates in the best holiday of the year, Halloween. And this month all three Malevolence films are being re-issued in Blu-ray/DVD combo packs. Malevolence is a suspenseful horror film that works to scare you, without any nods or winks at the audience, without such devices which actually often pull you out of a film. This movie is a return to the true horror films that we grew up on, and it certainly delivers plenty of frightening moments.

The creepy atmosphere is established in the very first shots, those handheld exterior shots of a building giving you an unsettling feeling. But it is what is inside that is more frightening. A young woman is chained, hanging from the ceiling. A man enters, carrying a bundle, which turns out to be a young boy that he had abducted. The woman knows then that her end is near and begins to scream. The man, without hesitation, kills her while the boy watches silently. It is a dark, twisted and really good opening scene.

The film then jumps forward a decade, and the tone and style change somewhat. We are introduced to two men who are planning a crime, and then their somewhat hesitant accomplices, Julian (Brandon Johnson) and Marylin (Heather Magee), who need to pay off a debt. Julian is reluctant, but Marylin – like Lady Macbeth – urges him on. At this point, the movie has become a crime story, perhaps reminding viewers of Psycho in the way it combines crime and horror. The four rob a bank. What’s cool is that the camera remains outside while the robbery goes down. We hear gunfire, so we know something went wrong. One of the men – Marylin’s brother – is shot, and dies en route to the rendezvous point, an abandoned house far from town. One of the getaway vehicles has a blowout on the road, and so that man forces a woman (Samantha Dark) to drive him the rest of the way, holding the woman’s daughter at gunpoint to make sure she will comply. He arrives first, and ties up both the mother and daughter. However, the daughter is able to get loose and escape. She runs to the nearest building for help. But no help is to be found there.

Interestingly, the film shifts to the robber’s perspective as he searches the building for the girl and discovers some disturbing things. So we go from fearing for her life to fearing for his, something that is certainly unusual in horror films. And yes, at this point, the film is firmly back in horror territory. And once there, it does not let up. The film provides plenty of scares and jolts, and features an eerily silent killer, once again reminding us of some of the horror movies of our youth, such as Halloween and Friday The 13th. The film gets especially frightening when that great opening scene is revisited, only now with different participants, because we know what to expect. Plus, there are some good performances here. The best performance of the film is by Samantha Dark as the mom. She spends a good portion of it tied up and gagged, and that moment when she sees the killer coming down the stairs behind one of the robbers and can’t scream is fantastic. And the film is shot really well. If you like your horror to have a raw, suspenseful look rather than being laden with computer graphics and special effects, you will very likely appreciate and enjoy Malevolence.

Special Features

This Blu-ray/DVD pack has plenty of special features. There is a commentary track with director Stevan Mena, actor Brandon Johnson and associate producer Eddie Akmal. They talk about the locations and some of the troubles of low-budget filmmaking. They also mention that this first film is actually the middle part of the trilogy, and that they filmed it first because it was the least expensive one to shoot.

Back To The Slaughterhouse is a half-hour feature looking back at the film, with an interview with writer/director Stevan Mena, who talks about the influence of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and other horror films. He mentions that the cinematographer had previously shot documentary work, and that it took two years to shoot the film, which is wild. He tells an interesting anecdote about losing a key location. This feature takes us on a tour of the locations, with a good amount of time spent at the slaughterhouse. Brandon Johnson is also interviewed.

The Dark Side Of Horror is an interview with Samantha Dark, in which she talks about her career and her love of horror films. This is approximately twelve minutes. There is also an interview with Gunnar Hansen in which he talks about what he liked about Malevolence. He delivers some thoughts on the current state of horror movies. Also in the special features is rehearsal footage of Julian and Marylin’s first scene. There are also ten minutes of deleted and extended scenes, and outtakes. These include some good moments in the field scene before Julian and Marylin bury Marylin’s brother that I wish had been left in. Also included is the fundraiser trailer, which was created in order to raise the money to shoot the film. The special features are rounded out with a photo gallery and some television and radio spots (which also include a brief news segment on the production of the film).

Malevolence was written and directed by Stevan Mena. He also did the music, just as director John Carpenter did for Halloween. It is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray/DVD on October 15, 2019.