OCTOBER MOVIE MONTH: Malevolent
The worst part about deciding which movie to watch next is, I just want written reviews about these movies to better help me decide but... I don't want to read a snobby movie critic's review. I wanna read a review from someone who accidentally got drunk by them self on a weekday and spent their last $10 on pizza. Shit. I definitely just described myself... Looks like I AM THE HERO I NEED!
Okay anyway
The movie I am reviewing today is
Synopsis: "A group of fake paranormal investigators suffer the ultimate reality check when confronted by the true horrors that lie hidden within a haunted orphanage."
This movie is really hard to find information on, for some reason? If you Google "Malevolent", the poster and information that pops up on the right (courtesy of Wikipedia) is incorrect. The synopsis is right but if you click into the Wikipedia page, it mentions the wrong actors and says this is an animated movie? I'm not sure what's going on. Are there several movies with this title? I don't know. Let's jump into the review.
Malevolent means "having or showing a wish to do evil to others."
I must admit, I'm having a hard time articulating how this film made me feel. It was very underwhelming. It was incredibly mediocre. Good storyline potential but it fell flat. Basically this movie follows around a sibling duo (brother and sister) who stage paranormal encounters for money. (Essentially they're scam artists). The brother's girlfriend is along for the ride as is one of their friends who helps film the encounters, he's their cameraman. There is virtually no backstory to any of these characters and really no character or story/plot development in the beginning of this movie. Normally, I enjoy this, but I think that's part of the reason why this movie felt like it was lacking. There was no emotional connection to any of the characters. Fine, not the end of the world, but it made the brother/sister dynamic less believable and I wasn't as "sold" on the story. It seemed hokey. There were also several scenes where I wasn't sure the relevance? Or things were awkwardly shot or drawn out.. For example, at one point in the movie, the homeowner shouts, in a panic, "oh no! Are they going to the East wing? They can't be there!" But it's never explained why the East wing is bad? Or why they shouldn't be going there? There is no clarity on this throughout the rest of the movie. I also can't understand why half of this orphanage is grey and the other half is red? I thought maybe this would have some significance but it doesn't? Perhaps they just renovated this house and when they added the expansion, they used red brick instead? I'm not sure. This also never becomes clear. There are also a handful of scenes where the main character is walking away from the camera for SO LONG. I don't know if they were trying to stretch out the movie? Added for dramatic effect? I don't know but it was awkward watching a scene where the character is walking away, back to the camera, for more than 30 seconds. I felt like I was waiting for something to happen in these moments but nothing does. I'm convinced it was for added dramatics but it felt unnecessary, like they were just filler scenes.
I don't have much more to say about what I thought of this movie so lets get into the rundown.
You learn early in the movie the siblings (Angela and Jackson) lost their mother 5 years ago and apparently she was a medium, someone who could interact with the dead.
The sibling duo use this to profit. They claim Angela has the same gifts her mother did and they go around staging paranormal encounters.
They head to the first house and the family wants to "send their mom to heaven", they claim she's "stuck in the house", the sibling duo film some stuff, everything is going according to plan, business as usual, they do this a lot so they have a whole script and process that they follow. Everything is going well.
Angela then hears something upstairs and heads up to the attic where she finds several mannequins.
She's poking around, looking for stuff when all of a sudden she notices a mannequin has moved, she stares at it for a few seconds, then it lunges for her. She falls to the floor and her brother comes rushing upstairs to see what the problem was.
She's all, haha funny joke, you made the mannequin move.
The brother has no idea what she's talking about, so she laughs it off and tells him to not worry about it.
They finish up at this house and get a call for the next.
They pull up to this creepy old orphanage where apparently, three young girls were murdered.
They meet the homeowner and she explains that she "wants the screaming to stop." She says since the little girls were murdered, she hears screaming all night long.
They start doing their regular spiel and the homeowner tells Jackson to "cut the crap."
He's a little taken aback by this but they still set up all their equipment and have everything ready to stage a paranormal encounter however, when they're doing their fake freaky shit, Angela actually starts hearing and seeing things.
She goes off course and Jackson asks what she's doing and she explains that "the little girl wants me to follow her."
Angela follows the creepy dead girl and they discover the room where these girls were held hostage before being murdered.
SPOILER ALERT:
They uncover creepy secrets and discover that the person who murdered these girls is actually the homeowner!
Now the brother and sister and 2 friends are all running for their lives, trying to avoid being murdered by this psycho woman.
Angela keeps seeing the murdered girls throughout the house and hears them whispering.
They're all still running for their lives.
Jackson finds his girlfriend, dead.
He later gets captured by this psycho woman and she cuts his tongue out of his mouth and sews it shut.
The homeowner and her husband capture the rest of the friends and try to kill them.
Angela is tied up and watching their cameraman get murdered.
She's screaming for help, looks up and see's the dead murdered girls, she calls out to them, begging for help while their cameraman friend is being killed.
Just as the psycho homeowner is about to finally kill the cameraman, the little girls start screaming and the woman stops what she's doing.
Angela gets free and starts fighting back.
They kill the crazy lady.
I think Jackson, Angela's brother, dies... I honestly can not remember what happens to him.
Angela saves herself and the cameraman and she goes to find help.
The end.
So weird. This is easily the worst movie I've watched this month. It's funny, just the other day I was thinking to myself about how I hadn't watched a disappointing movie yet... Looks like I spoke too soon. Considering I watched this movie last night, less than 24 hours ago, and I still can't remember bits and pieces of the movie, says a lot. As I mentioned earlier, this movie is very mediocre. There was so much potential for this movie but it really just didn't come together for me. Things they should have spent time on, felt rushed.. And things they could have skipped over, they spent time explaining. It was odd. I would only watch this movie again to catch things that I missed but even then, I don't think it would be worth my time. IMDb gives this movie a 4.8 out of 10 but I feel like that is being generous. I, personally, wouldn't give this movie more than a rating of 4. Final personal rating: 4/10. Wouldn't recommend unless you've seen every other scary movie out there and this is your last option.
The last movie I watched was really good! If you're looking for something scary, gory but really funny, check out my review on The Babysitter.
If you want something Halloween themed and more on the campy side, I would definitely recommend checking out Terrifier.
Okay anyway
The movie I am reviewing today is
MALEVOLENT
Synopsis: "A group of fake paranormal investigators suffer the ultimate reality check when confronted by the true horrors that lie hidden within a haunted orphanage."
This movie was released in 2018. IMDb gives this movie a 4.8/10. This is a paranormal/horror film. You can find this movie on Netflix.
Here's the trailer!
Malevolent means "having or showing a wish to do evil to others."
I must admit, I'm having a hard time articulating how this film made me feel. It was very underwhelming. It was incredibly mediocre. Good storyline potential but it fell flat. Basically this movie follows around a sibling duo (brother and sister) who stage paranormal encounters for money. (Essentially they're scam artists). The brother's girlfriend is along for the ride as is one of their friends who helps film the encounters, he's their cameraman. There is virtually no backstory to any of these characters and really no character or story/plot development in the beginning of this movie. Normally, I enjoy this, but I think that's part of the reason why this movie felt like it was lacking. There was no emotional connection to any of the characters. Fine, not the end of the world, but it made the brother/sister dynamic less believable and I wasn't as "sold" on the story. It seemed hokey. There were also several scenes where I wasn't sure the relevance? Or things were awkwardly shot or drawn out.. For example, at one point in the movie, the homeowner shouts, in a panic, "oh no! Are they going to the East wing? They can't be there!" But it's never explained why the East wing is bad? Or why they shouldn't be going there? There is no clarity on this throughout the rest of the movie. I also can't understand why half of this orphanage is grey and the other half is red? I thought maybe this would have some significance but it doesn't? Perhaps they just renovated this house and when they added the expansion, they used red brick instead? I'm not sure. This also never becomes clear. There are also a handful of scenes where the main character is walking away from the camera for SO LONG. I don't know if they were trying to stretch out the movie? Added for dramatic effect? I don't know but it was awkward watching a scene where the character is walking away, back to the camera, for more than 30 seconds. I felt like I was waiting for something to happen in these moments but nothing does. I'm convinced it was for added dramatics but it felt unnecessary, like they were just filler scenes.
I don't have much more to say about what I thought of this movie so lets get into the rundown.
You learn early in the movie the siblings (Angela and Jackson) lost their mother 5 years ago and apparently she was a medium, someone who could interact with the dead.
The sibling duo use this to profit. They claim Angela has the same gifts her mother did and they go around staging paranormal encounters.
They head to the first house and the family wants to "send their mom to heaven", they claim she's "stuck in the house", the sibling duo film some stuff, everything is going according to plan, business as usual, they do this a lot so they have a whole script and process that they follow. Everything is going well.
Angela then hears something upstairs and heads up to the attic where she finds several mannequins.
She's poking around, looking for stuff when all of a sudden she notices a mannequin has moved, she stares at it for a few seconds, then it lunges for her. She falls to the floor and her brother comes rushing upstairs to see what the problem was.
She's all, haha funny joke, you made the mannequin move.
The brother has no idea what she's talking about, so she laughs it off and tells him to not worry about it.
They finish up at this house and get a call for the next.
They pull up to this creepy old orphanage where apparently, three young girls were murdered.
They meet the homeowner and she explains that she "wants the screaming to stop." She says since the little girls were murdered, she hears screaming all night long.
They start doing their regular spiel and the homeowner tells Jackson to "cut the crap."
He's a little taken aback by this but they still set up all their equipment and have everything ready to stage a paranormal encounter however, when they're doing their fake freaky shit, Angela actually starts hearing and seeing things.
She goes off course and Jackson asks what she's doing and she explains that "the little girl wants me to follow her."
Angela follows the creepy dead girl and they discover the room where these girls were held hostage before being murdered.
SPOILER ALERT:
They uncover creepy secrets and discover that the person who murdered these girls is actually the homeowner!
Now the brother and sister and 2 friends are all running for their lives, trying to avoid being murdered by this psycho woman.
Angela keeps seeing the murdered girls throughout the house and hears them whispering.
They're all still running for their lives.
Jackson finds his girlfriend, dead.
He later gets captured by this psycho woman and she cuts his tongue out of his mouth and sews it shut.
The homeowner and her husband capture the rest of the friends and try to kill them.
Angela is tied up and watching their cameraman get murdered.
She's screaming for help, looks up and see's the dead murdered girls, she calls out to them, begging for help while their cameraman friend is being killed.
Just as the psycho homeowner is about to finally kill the cameraman, the little girls start screaming and the woman stops what she's doing.
Angela gets free and starts fighting back.
They kill the crazy lady.
I think Jackson, Angela's brother, dies... I honestly can not remember what happens to him.
Angela saves herself and the cameraman and she goes to find help.
The end.
So weird. This is easily the worst movie I've watched this month. It's funny, just the other day I was thinking to myself about how I hadn't watched a disappointing movie yet... Looks like I spoke too soon. Considering I watched this movie last night, less than 24 hours ago, and I still can't remember bits and pieces of the movie, says a lot. As I mentioned earlier, this movie is very mediocre. There was so much potential for this movie but it really just didn't come together for me. Things they should have spent time on, felt rushed.. And things they could have skipped over, they spent time explaining. It was odd. I would only watch this movie again to catch things that I missed but even then, I don't think it would be worth my time. IMDb gives this movie a 4.8 out of 10 but I feel like that is being generous. I, personally, wouldn't give this movie more than a rating of 4. Final personal rating: 4/10. Wouldn't recommend unless you've seen every other scary movie out there and this is your last option.
The last movie I watched was really good! If you're looking for something scary, gory but really funny, check out my review on The Babysitter.
If you want something Halloween themed and more on the campy side, I would definitely recommend checking out Terrifier.
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