MALEVOLENCE

Four criminals organize a bank robbery; but the heist doesn't go as planned and one of them loses his life. The three surviving robbers split up, meeting at an isolated house, near only an abandoned slaughterhouse. One of the criminals is left with a broken-down car and, to reach the meeting place, steals a car at a gas station, also kidnapping a woman with her teenage daughter, the car's owners. Arrived at the safe house, the three criminals and the two hostages will be prey to a masked psychopathic killer, who lives in the adjacent slaughterhouse. A poor slasher movie that plunders ideas and situations from famous films of recent cinematic past, horror and otherwise; indeed, in this "Malevolence" we can find an opening similar to cult films like "Reservoir Dogs" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" (the failed robbery and the hostage taking), only to plunge into the most typical slasher movie plot in the style of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th". The film was directed, written, and produced by the debutant Stevan Mena, who fails to give us a particularly engaging screenplay, nor a direction that sets itself apart from the amateurism of works destined for home video. The little-known actors are not memorable for their performance, perhaps with the sole exception of Samantha Dark, the actress who plays the role of the kidnapped woman. Even the killer is not at all memorable, because he is not original at all, neither for his aesthetic, nor for the way he behaves; in fact, the psychopath of "Malevolence" wears a mechanic's suit (like Michael Myers) and a mask made from a cloth bag with only holes for the eyes (very similar to the one worn by Jason Voorhees in the second installment of the series dedicated to him), moreover, he moves slowly and prefers stalking and sudden appearances like the aforementioned Michael Myers of "Halloween". The film in question is built of two clearly distinct parts: a first part rather slow and uninvolving and a second frenetic part in which the killer comes into action and that, although partly enjoyable, leaves the viewer with an annoying sense of déjà vu; to conclude with an unnecessary open-ended finale. Unfortunately, the film is completely devoid of violent or bloody scenes, and the murders all occur off-screen, further diminishing the horror value of the work. Strangely, "Malevolence" had good critical success at home, even winning an award at the New York Horror Film Festival. To be avoided especially the poor edition distributed in Italy for the home video market only, which features a pedestrian dubbing, with obvious lip sync issues.