When a rookie cop takes on the last shift at a decommissioned police station where members of a cult committed suicide years prior, she isn’t prepared for the supernatural grip that the cult’s leader has over the place. As the paranormal occurrences grow in frequency and escalate to deadly extremes, she begins to uncover the truth not only about the cult, but also the connection they have to her family’s past…
A rookie police officer vs. a vicious satanic cult. Sound familiar? Well that’s because writer-director Anthony DiBlasi felt the urge to remake his own low-budget film ‘Last Shift’, released ten years ago. A strange choice, considering that psychological horror movie was a great piece of work in its own right, but fortunately this update is not a wasted endeavour either.
‘Malum’, ironically, isn’t quite as good despite some positive tweaks. The evil cult is fleshed out more here, particularly from the outset, and there is more dark lore drip fed throughout the story; this recontextualizes the villains influence on the present which was substantially absent from the previous film. The most notable difference is that ‘Malum’ is much gorier. In ‘Last Shift’ events were a more psychological threat than a physical one, whereas here the line between hallucination and reality blurs nightmarishly to the point you don’t know if the violence is real or imagined – though it splatters profoundly all the same. The protagonist is often spent questioning loud noises, glimpsing phantom figures that leer and then vanish, and shooting in an aimless panic towards the darkness when something sinister ventures too close. Whatever the threat, the sound design does a fantastic job of putting you on edge.
Visually this is impressive, with clean photography and effective lighting making the police station a suitable gauntlet for its unlucky protagonist to combat: terror lurks just out of the artificial lights reach, and the darkness is often a character itself, withholding jump scares and queasy sights on a regular basis once the film finds its rhythm. A huge emphasis on practical effects helps ‘Malum’ strike a visceral impact alongside its atmospheric one, and the make-up is appropriately gnarly in its application to the disturbing antagonists – the director is confident showing his human monsters up close as they taunt and terrorize.
Overall, even though this horror felt like an unnecessary remake, the director clearly had more to tell within this story and did just that. Humans prove the scariest of villains once again, especially when outfitted in unholy costumes, driven by an unwavering worship of the devil, and have a penchant for gleeful torment and bloodletting. When a character is trapped, this is accentuated tenfold, as is the case here. A fast pace, neat editing, a wealth of creativity that keep the setting from becoming stale, and a well-executed shock ending ultimately make ‘Malum’ a creepy mindfuck worth experiencing.
Score – 7/10
The SS Criticism 