The tagline on the first Malevolence film was, “Nobody gets out alive.” In the case of its sequel, which is actually a prequel, 2010’s Malevolence: Bereavement (although it also seems to just be known by Bereavement), that tagline actually applies, including with the original killer himself.
Just like the first installment in 2004, the sequel/prequel, Stevan Mena is producing, directing, writing, editing, and doing the music. Quite impressive. However, the ante has certainly been upped. The 2004 film was given a budget by distributor Anchor Bay Films of $200,000, and it made a nice $346,085 at the global box office. By comparison, the 2010 film, also distributed by Anchor Bay Films, had a budget of $2 million, and again made a nice profit of $10 million at the global box office. The slate of actors is elevated from the low-budget first film, too, with Alexandra Daddario in a starring role, and prolific actor Michael Biehen in the role of her uncle. That said, Daddario is somewhat miscast in the stereotypical Hollywood way: She plays Allison Miller, who is supposed to be a 17-year-old girl, but at the time of the film, Daddario was 24.
Nonetheless, with a bigger budget also means this film has a longer runtime, about 25 minutes longer than the prior film, or 10 minutes shy of two hours. I do think it had some unnecessary bloat to it, primarily at the start. On the positive side, the bigger budget also just means better sound mixing and production, and it shows here with beautiful landscape shots of rural Pennsylvania.
In the first film, Mena aimed to show the debate between nurture and nature, i.e., a kid “raised” by a serial killer, would he become a serial killer, too? That theme wasn’t fleshed out much in the bare bones first film, but with Bereavement, Mena has time to explore that through Graham Sutter, the original serial killer at the Sutter slaughterhouse, and his protégé, Martin Bristol (played by Spencer List). Throughout the film, Sutter is muttering to himself about whether his human victims feel anything, including fear, and whether Bristol will be a worthy successor. He seems to be taking his marching orders, in his psychopathic brain, from a trophy steer anchored to the wall. When I realized that, I giggled. Get it, he’s taking his order from a steer, as in being steered wrong? Heh heh.
I mentioned in my review of the first film that Mena seemed to be doing a homage to Halloween. Well, he gets away from that here because there is far less atmosphere than in the first one, although there is a homage scene where Allison is listening to a teacher explain the theme (nature vs. nurture), and she’s looking out the window. But if I did have to approximate a homage for Bereavement, I’d go with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and perhaps the 2003 remake version, owing to the slaughterhouse environment, the hooks and resulting gore (more gore than in the prior film), and even down to Daddario wearing a white t-shirt like Jessica Biel did in TCM.
A subtler form of the nature vs. nurture debate is William (played by Nolan Gerard Funk), who is considered “unstable” by Allison’s uncle and aunt because of his alcoholic dad but naturally, Allison rebelliously falls for him anyway. In other words, because of the environment he’s growing up in, is William destined to be like his dad and trouble for Allison? I think that was a fun juxtaposition and better than the on-the-nose version from the teacher.
But like I said, everyone dies. I was actually surprised how direct and quick the writing was in that regard. Not in a bad way, mind you. Allison gets captured by Sutter when she tries to foolheartedly rescue Bristol from the slaughterhouse. Her uncle comes looking for her and is dispatched with a shotgun blast to the chest by Sutter. Then, William comes looking for her, too, and almost frees her from a cooler, only to be hacked to death by a shovel courtesy of Sutter. Allison frees herself and again tries to rescue Bristol. She brings him back to her house where Sutter has arrived to kill the aunt, and is seemingly set to kill Allison’s cousin (who is incidentally, played by the real-life sister of Spencer List, Peyton List). Allison intervenes, stabbing Sutter. Then, Allison again tries to rescue Bristol only to be brutally stabbed by him. Off-screen, Bristol then kills the cousin upstairs.
Sutter escapes the house, which he also set fire to, and upon returning to the slaughterhouse, he’s killed by Bristol, as we knew would be the case from what we were told in the first film. In the only eye roll moment I had watching the film, the police stand over the wreckage of the burnt-out house, and wonder what caused the fire and resulting deaths, not seeming to realize they were brutally murdered, but like, it would be obvious, even if their bodies were charred, that they were killed prior to the fire! But still, it was nice of the police to finally show up (where were they at the beginning of the film when Sutter kidnaps a waitress from a diner, and her car is left running in the parking lot? That would send up some red flags, you’d think), and at least the family dog survived the brutality and the fire.
Overall, I thought, even with a better budget, better sound, better production, better acting, and more time to play with, this was a step down from the first film because the first film had better atmosphere, and as I said, I’m a sucker for foreboding atmosphere. I also prefer the menacing stalking versus in-your-face gore. This one tried to be psychological thriller and slasher, and the mash-up just didn’t quite work. Even so, it was a worthy effort and a fun installment in the “franchise,” as it were.
Milam's Musings 