6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A handful of bank robbers on the run stumble upon a danger far worse than the police in this horror opus. Julian and Marylin are a young couple who have fallen deep in debt. Desperate to get back on their feet again, they team up with Marylin's brother Max, an ex-con, and his buddy Kurt to rob a bank. On the run from the law after the robbery turns into a shoot-out, Kurt impulsively grabs a woman named Samantha and her daughter as hostages, and head out to what they believe is an abandoned farmhouse in a sparsely populated rural village. However, the thieves and the hostages quickly discover the house is not abandoned after all; a serial killer who has been preying on the community for decades has been using the house as a base of operations, and the criminals soon find themselves at the mercy of a horror more gruesome than they could ever have imagined.
Starring: R. Brandon Johnson, Samantha Dark, Heather Magee (II), Richard Glover, Courtney BertoloneHorror | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
BDInfo
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Writer, director, composer, co-editor and one assumes craft services provider Stevan Mena mentions in one of the supplements included on this Blu- ray release of Mena’s film Malevolence how a number of horror and/or suspense classics informed his early filmgoing experience and ultimately led to this very outing. Among the films Mena cites are The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Psycho, but based solely on the image of a serial killer with a burlap sack over his head, it might seem that other films like The Town That Dreaded Sundown may have played into Mena’s formative experiences. Malevolence is by Mena’s own admission a micro budgeted affair, and it often looks like it, but it does have a palpably unsettling mood, and it does in fact follow Psycho’s general structural outline of presenting the theft of money in its first half hour or so before darting off into more murderous mayhem.
Malevolence is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Mena Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a decent looking transfer that nonetheless does have some minor signs of haloing as well as a not very noticeable grain field at times, but the back cover states this was sourced from the 35mm negative and supervised by Mena and cinematographer Tsuyoshi Kimoto. As can probably be gleaned from some of the screenshots accompanying this review, huge swaths of the story play out in deep tones of blue, and both fine detail and shadow definition can be lacking. In more brightly lit moments, fine detail perks up considerably, but even here the palette doesn't always really pop with great energy. This was obviously a micro-budgeted feature, and so fans are probably going to come into this with expectations properly set, willing to forgive occasional softness and even elements like momentary focus pulling efforts.
Unfortunately only two lossy Dolby tracks are included on this release, something that continues to kind of chafe at my personal tastes, since I feel Blu- ray discs support lossless audio and should be a requirement on all releases, and so my score above reflects that opinion (your mileage may of course vary). The surround track here is quite effective at times, with good startle effects and nice attention paid to both ambient environmental effects and discrete placement of individual effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout.
Malevolence is seemingly intentionally derivative, and so horror fans looking for some bright, shiny (bloody?) new object may not find enough here, but for those willing to go with the (bloody?) flow, the film does deliver some jolts. Mena may still be getting a hand on the Blu-ray market, as evidenced by some clunky menu authoring and inclusion of lossy audio, but fans may find this an appealing enough package with some enjoyable supplements.
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