Blu-ray/DVD Review: Malevolence 3: Killer

We are well into the month of Halloween, the perfect time to enjoy some good horror films. All three Malevolence films are being re-issued as Blu-ray/DVD combo packs. While the first Malevolence is a suspense film combined with a crime story, and Malevolence 2: Bereavement is an intriguing and terrifying psychological study of what makes a killer, Malevolence 3: Killer is more in line with the classic slasher flicks of the 1980s. This time around, we are introduced to characters who are mostly there to add to the body count, characters we don’t care much about, such as the guy at the storage unit, and characters we even dislike, such as the sleazy landlord and the obnoxious roommate. But that’s part of the point. This film is an homage to slasher films, and as such it works quite well, delivering lots of jolts and scares. Like the first two films, Malevolence 3: Killer was written and directed by Stevan Mena, and this time around he also acts as the director of photography.

This film opens basically where the first film left off (remember that the second film actually takes place before the first one), and even includes a bit of the ending of that first movie. And we see Martin Bristol (Jay Cohen), the killer, escaping through the woods, now loose upon the world and seemingly eager to kill more people. The film focuses on two groups of characters. The first centers on music student Ellie (Katie Gibson), along with her roommates, boyfriend and neighbors, all of whom are unwittingly in the path of a killer. The second group is made up of the agents investigating the murders from the first film, centering on Agent Perkins (Kevin McKelvy), who leads the investigation. And so we hope these two groups will meet before the first group is completely slaughtered.

As with most slasher sequels from the 1980s, it does not take long before the bodies start piling up. One of Ellie’s neighbors is a precocious child named Victoria (Victoria Mena), and her mother is one of the first to go, leading the girl to seek help from Ellie. That might bring to mind the first Halloween, for Ellie essentially acts as a babysitter to Victoria while they wait for the girl’s father to return home. Also, Ellie is the good girl of the film, the innocent and intelligent girl you assume will be the final person standing, like Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Halloween. Another element that might remind you of Halloween is that while Ellie’s friends are being murdered, the police are watching the wrong house, believing Martin will return home.

However, I like that the agents are not stupid, and it doesn’t take them long to come up with Martin Bristol as a suspect. They soon discover that the survivors of the first film – a mother and daughter – have been murdered, and come to believe that Martin Bristol will return home because his mother is the only link he has to the world. The film features a supporting performance by Adrienne Barbeau as Martin’s grandmother. Of course, that also connects this film to 1980s horror movies, for Adrienne Barbeau starred in such movies as The Fog, The Thing and Creepshow. I love her reaction when she is told Martin might still be alive. She is overwhelmed, immediately reaching for the phone to call her daughter. Her presence is certainly an asset to this film.

As I mentioned, Malevolence 3 is quite a bit different from the two previous installments in the series, being more of a slasher film. And like other slasher films, it contains plenty of false scares preceding the real scares. For example, a hand reaching into a car to grab a guy turns out to be the guy’s girlfriend. But then a moment later the killer reaches in to stab him. There is also nudity and even a bit of sex, something absent from the earlier two films. As with those earlier films, director Stevan Mena composed the music, and some of the music cues here will remind you of Friday The 13th and other 1980s slasher flicks. While this film is not nearly as good as Malevolence 2: Bereavement, it is still enjoyable and gets quite tense toward the end.

Special Features

This Blu-ray/DVD set contains a few special features, including a commentary track by director Stevan Mena, who talks about having to reshoot a lot of the film after the death of a key actor. He also talks about the casting, and using his daughter for the role of Victoria. He says the movie is a love letter to the slasher movies he grew up with. “And the thing that I tried to capture from that time period is really the tone,” he says. This is the first movie that he shot digitally.

There is a behind-the-scenes featurette that contains footage from the location scout as well as moments from the production, including bits with the animals and trying to get them to do what was needed. This is approximately eight minutes. Composing Killer is a short piece on the score, focusing on an interview with Stevan Mena who talks about the importance of music in horror films. This special feature is approximately seven minutes.

The special features also include a photo gallery and trailers for all three Malevolence films.

Malevolence 3: Killer was written and directed by Stevan Mena, and is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray/DVD on October 15, 2019.

Blu-ray/DVD Review: Malevolence 2: Bereavement

Malevolence 2: Bereavement is that rarest of creatures – a sequel that is actually better than the original film. And the original film was quite good.  Unlike many horror films, this one takes the time to establish its characters, to make them believable, and to even make us care about them. It also tells a compelling story, with drama and not just horror, and actually has something to say on the theme of nature versus nurture. And besides that, it is seriously frightening. Malevolence 2: Bereavement has a tremendous cast, which includes Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Abyss, Grindhouse), Alexandra Daddario (Hall Pass, Burying The Ex), Brett Rickaby (The Crazies, Fear Of The Walking Dead: Flight 462) and John Savage (The Deer Hunter, Hair, White Squall, Empire Of The Sharks), and was written and directed by Stevan Mena, who also wrote and directed the original film. The director’s cut is now being issued as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, with plenty of bonus material.

At the beginning of the first film, Malevolence, we learned that a six-year-old boy named Martin Bristol was abducted in 1989. The rest of that movie took place ten years later, when that boy – now a teenager – had become a deranged killer. Malevolence 2: Bereavement, as it opens, takes us back to that abduction, providing more details. We see the boy on his swing set, looking rather sullen, while inside the house his mother tells another woman about his condition. “His body just can’t recognize sensations of pain.” A man in an old dark truck pulls up, and soon Martin is being taken to that man’s home, where he witnesses a gruesome murder. This scene is quite frightening, in large part because of the victim’s performance, particularly her scream, which feels real. The man, Graham Sutter (Brett Rickaby), tells Martin not to be afraid. But Martin is afraid.

The film then jumps forward five years (and so takes place five years before the main events of the first film), introducing us to Allison (Alexandra Daddario), a seventeen-year-old girl who moves in with her uncle (Michael Biehn) and his family following her parents’ deaths. She ran track at her previous school in Chicago, but finds that her new school offers nothing for female athletes other than cheerleading. So she is largely on her own, finding solace in jogging. Her jogging route takes her past a seemingly abandoned building where she spies Martin (Spencer List) in one of the windows. The one friend she makes is William (Nolan Gerard Funk), a young man with his own troubles, including his relationship with his handicapped father (John Savage).

Meanwhile Sutter has found a new victim, a woman named Melissa (Valentina De Angelis), who is abducted outside the diner where she works. This film is so adept at establishing its characters that we even care strongly for Melissa, a minor character who in a lesser film would be simply part of the body count, someone to knock off before we get to the main character. Valentina De Angelis delivers a fantastic performance as Melissa, and that is certainly part of what makes this character stand out. The moments when Melissa is suspended from the ceiling, looking directly at Martin standing in front of her, are disturbing and intense. And one of the film’s most horrifying sequences is that of Melissa’s fate. “Furnace needs scrubbing,” Sutter tells Martin afterward. We also see some of the physical and psychological torture the boy endures. And knowing it’s already been going on for five years can’t help but affect us, just as it is clearly affecting him.

In a scene at the high school, a teacher talks to his class (which includes Allison) about the question of whether we are products of genetics, “predisposed to exhibit certain behavioral patterns,” or environment. That, as I mentioned, is a question this film addresses. Can a young boy be made into a killer by the environment in which he is raised? The first film (which takes place after this one) seems to have supplied the answer. But seeing the transformation of this young boy into a killer is striking, and one of the elements that set this horror film apart from most of its genre. Malevolence 2: Bereavement is one of the best horror films I’ve seen in the last twenty years. It features some excellent performances, an intriguing story, a lot of suspense, and a whole lot of frightening scenes. Also, I should mention that there is a scene after the end credits, so be sure to watch it until the end.

Special Features

This Blu-ray/DVD set contains some special features, including a behind-the-scenes featurette. This featurette has on-set interviews with most of the cast, including John Savage (who remarks, “It’s a better script than most horror movies”), Alexandra Daddario, Michael Biehn, Nolan Gerard Funk, Spencer List, Peyton List, Marissa Guill, Valentina De Angelis, and Brett Rickeby, who says he wants people to relate to his character, even empathize with him. It also includes an interview with director Stevan Mena, who talks about the film’s ending. This featurette is approximately thirty-five minutes.

First Look: On The Set is a shorter behind-the-scenes featurette, with interviews with Stevan Mena and producer Tom Bambard. This one is approximately seven minutes. There are also some deleted scenes, mostly stuff with William, but also a scene with Allison and her uncle. A photo gallery and the film’s trailer are also included.

The special features include a commentary track by director Stevan Mena, who talks about the importance of the opening scenes and the necessity of the dark ending. He gives some interesting information, including the name of the actor he’d originally intended to play the role of Sutter.

Malevolence 2: Bereavement was written and directed by Stevan Mena. The director’s cut is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray/DVD on October 15, 2019.

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.