Shit Folks I'm Scared

Thanks to Michael Bay and a few other hacks, recent horror movies for the most part have sucked ass.

The remake of Dawn Of The Dead is a nice exception.

And so is a movie titled Malevolence.

Seen it? Holy shit, it's scary. Like Halloween scary. Like you're watching a couple of people talking and then you notice that there's some creep in the distance standing there watching them, waiting to kill them scary.

I thought that touch was lost in lieu of flashy cuts, ramping, creepy sound effects and every other technique that's used to make up for the fact that a movie isn't that scary.

The story involves a group of three who rob a bank and meet at a house in the middle of nowheresville to count their money. Of course there's a snafu and the group finds themselves split up and trying to find each other. Meanwhile, a local crazy is stalking them. This movie isn't about the plot, it's about the old-fashioned techniques that horror masters like John Carpenter used to scare the bejesus out of people. There's a slow building creepiness about this movie that lingers long after you've stopped watching it. The spooks aren't in the killing (there's little to no blood) or even the chasing, it's in the idea that this killer is anywhere and everywhere, waiting to kill. Like seeing Michael Myers among the clothesline in the backyard.

The story I was told about this movie is that it played at a horror film festival and right after the first reel, the film broke. They couldn't fix the film so the director/writer Stevan Mena stood before the audience and told the rest of the movie. Based on the story alone, the movie won the grand prize at the festival. Not sure if the story is true or not, but this movie is certainly for real.

Thanks to Malevolence, great horror is still alive and waiting in the closet for you to fall asleep.