Wow. I hope this one is as weird and disturbing as the trailer makes it out to be.
Whew, opening few minutes lets us know that this won’t be one for the faint of heart, so that’s a good start.
Malum is a sizable but not giant city, seems maybe upper midwest kinda like Cleveland or Toledo. Rookie cop, young woman. Her father was the Malum Police Chief, until his tenure came to a shocking and murderous end a year ago. On his final day, he rescued three of the four young women who were involved in some sort of ritual thing. The old police station where he snapped is now set to be demolished, but his daughter, on her first night on the force, wants to work the night shift at the old station, just as a security guard detail, just to know where her father spent his last few hours.
So she’s alone in this big, creepy, run down building. Creepy stuff starts happening- giant pig with satanic symbols scrawled on it, scary transient guy. It’s kinda standard stuff, but it’s very well done. The prostitute thing is really good.
She breaks into her father’s old locker and finds some stuff- old files and newspaper clippings, a USB thumb drive with some video files. Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn’t seen any of that.
It’s all very well done. Excellent camera, excellent camerawork. Music is what you expect, but also very effective. Heavy distorted synths. Lovely. Pacing is good. Characters are good, lead actress is really good.
Now, the only question left is does the last part of the movie deliver?
And wow, it has some serious Silent Hill shit going on at the end. Some heavy duty horror shit.
Minor criticisms- it never lays out what exactly the cult was all about or what they were trying to achieve. Just another movie where I just couldn’t put all the pieces together. Throw it on the pile of all the others that I couldn’t figure out. And another movie where the person is groping around in the dark with a little flashlight and all of us in the audience keep yelling TURN ON THE FUCKING LIGHTS ALREADY! THERE’S A LIGHT SWITCH RIGHT THERE ON THE WALL! WHY DON’T YOU TURN IT ON?! And other little stuff, I forget right now, just as the movie ends. Because on the whole, it’s another one where everything doesn’t quite make sense, but if you want some really gnarly, heavy duty, on the heavy side of rated R horror, definitely check this one out. For fans of Silent Hill or The Void or Baskin.
If this one would have given some back story on the cult and given us some context about why anything was happening, it would have gone five stars. So close, but check it out anyway.
B-movie Roundup 