Bereavement, the aptly titled name for Stevan Mena’s Malevolence prequel, is the latest B rated horror film to hit theaters this year. The film is not your typical horror/serial killer film that you’d expect to see, especially when you look at the poster (left) with a child holding a massive knife (that’s the poster that was banned by the MPAA and originally gave the film an NC-17 rating).
The story of Bereavement is as follows: in 1989 a six year old boy named Martin is kidnapped by a psychotic man named Graham (Brett Rickaby–The Crazies). Graham takes him to his washed up pig farm where he forces Martin to watch him slay young women in a brutal manner. Martin has the CIPA disorder, the condition where someone cannot feel pain and, as a result, is subjected to some of Martin’s cruelty as well, although unknowingly. Five years later a 17 year old girl named Allison (Alexandra Daddario–Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) moves in with her uncle (Michael Biehn) after the death of her parents. When she goes on one of her cross country runs, she notices a boy in the farmhouse and eventually the film takes its due course.
For the most part, I thought this movie wasn’t very good. I’m used to watching B rated films and understand when they are trying and when they are not. Director Stevan Mena tried really hard to make this film work and while there were some shining spots throughout the movie, it really didn’t have the impact that it strived for. I’ll start with the positives and then go into the negatives of the film.
Having never seen the original film, Malevolence, I was able to come into this film without any predetermined notions. With that being said, you could tell Mena invested time into his characters and tried to steer away from the pitfalls of many horror movies, mainly the lack of actually story telling. You learned a lot about each individual character which helped you understand the various perspectives of the people involved. He didn’t focus on blood and gore, instead he tried to focus on the story because once your emotionally invested, which I personally wasn’t, a film automatically becomes more suspenseful without it having to try anymore.
The other three positive aspects of the film that I really enjoyed was one, how it built its way up to the original film perfectly, even including a scene after the credits that connects them both, two, the cinematography and grunginess of everything, and three the psychology of the original killer, Graham. In many horror films, it seems that when the killer hears voices and he talks to himself you usually hear what those voices are saying. Mena stayed extremely clear of including outside voices which actually made this character come off as even more psychotic, kind of like some of those crazy homeless characters you encounter on the subway in NYC. While his acting may not have been the best, he was at least able to convince you of his insanity and understand exactly why he was as crazy as he was. His creepiness and insanity was what really held this not-so-good movie together. Overall, it was a little disturbing but nothing you can’t get over two minutes after it ends.
It pains me to go into how bad some parts of this movie were but I must do so for the sake of everyone else out there. First up is the crazy love story plot. You have this new girl move in, she meets a guy, and then her Uncle tells her she can’t see him and he ends up roughing up the guy, who isn’t bad at all. It was so cliché and pointless that its only purpose was just to add another body to the murder count.
Secondly, the acting was miserable. Not that I had high expectations coming into the film, since I didn’t really know the names off the top of my head, I was still disappointed. As a result of their lack of conviction, I, like Martin (Spencer List), just couldn’t feel anything for anybody…and I tried so hard. You’d think having Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Abyss) in the film would help it a lot, but nope, it didn’t do jack. When watching the movie you’re bound to laugh at everyone’s performance at some point because of how bad the acting or dialogue is. Luckily, it’s usually the dialogue for the actor’s sake. As for our other lead, Alexandra Daddario, she didn’t do much but look really good on screen. The Lightning Thief costar is maturing and there were hints of promise in her performance but overall, unfortunately, it was pretty lackluster.
Due to the lack of conviction, the laughability of parts of the film, and a splotchy script, Bereavement isn’t really worth the price of admission. While it may have had some creative and promising moments and manages to stay clear of a majority of the pitfalls of the horror genre, I would wait to see Mena’s third directorial effort until it hits the rental shelves.
Rating: A lackluster horror that at least diverges from the pact of unoriginality
From Crimson Films on Vimeo.
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