Please note: I am not talking about the 1993 Alec Baldwin/Nicole Kidman thriller. This Malice is a feature film pieced together out of a web series (if my IMDB detective work is correct). Which is in and of itself is kind of interesting. We were doing it in the 30s and 40s with serials, and what's old is now new again via the internet. Anyways, you can't really tell that Malice was a web series. It mostly feels like a legit low-budget film on the first watch, and there aren't any obvious breaks in the action or anything like that. It's still not very good though. If I was watching it one 10-15 minute episode at a time, I'd maybe make it to episode three.
It starts with teenager Alice chilling on the roof of her house with an assault rifle (or other big gun), as a crowd of horribly animated zombies close in. The rest of the film gives you the story as to how that happened.
And how did it happen? That's a good question. In hindsight, the plot could expose it's episodic nature, as the film kind of feels like a hodgepodge of horror stuff... maybe ghost things, kind of zombie things, living plants. Probably a different baddie for each episode. (The one thing they all have in common? Bad CGI.) But, the story: Alice and the Turner family move into Grandma's house after Grandma passes away. Mom and Dad are excited about the chance to start over... Dad is suffering from some sort of PTSD after a military tour of Afghanistan, and Mom seems to have finally gotten her alcoholism under control.
But the house is weird... haunted, you might say... and it doesn't take long for Alice's parents to fall back into their destructive habits. Mom ups and vanishes, someone (or something!) starts writing in blood on the walls, and weird sights and sounds become the norm in the Turner household. All the while, Alice and her sister Abbey are trying to fit in at a new school. It's got a kind of Buffy-ish vibe in that respect, as it melds together the trials of growing up with the supernatural. (At least, that's coming from someone who has never seen an episode of Buffy.) It's all (theoretically) very troubling, and the Turner sisters must fight back to save what's left of their family.
The first thing you notice about Malice is that it's cheap. I have nothing against low budget horror, but the CGI here is distractingly bad. I get that the filmmakers here had some *big* ideas, but they realistically cannot play out well on a film with of this size. Plus, Malice is structured to depend less on good characters/clever writing and more on spectacle. But when your spectacle falls flat (i.e. straight-up looks bad) you're not left with much to hang your hat on. It's ambitious, and there's enough heart here that you kind of want to let the shoddy effects slide. But in the end you are just overwhelmed by them.
Horror-wise? There's some creative "monsters," but the execution is just lacking. I mean, they manage to build a decent sense of tension when a character is just wandering around a darkened room or whatever, but the reveal is almost always a disappointment. There isn't much by way of blood or gore - it's a strictly CGI "creature" deal, and wouldn't be out of place on the CW. In terms of themes/violence, at least. I assume the effects would be way better on the CW. (Again, speaking as someone who has never watched anything on the CW.)
I suppose the creatures would be a little more effective if you cared more about the humans that are being menaced. I mean, the characters here are okay, but aren't all that consistent or likable. I mean, you kind of feel bad for the sisters because of their parental issues, and you can kind of relate to them because high school sucks. But other than that, they are very reactionary - things just happen to them, and you never feel like you know them well as characters. Plus, it's hard for me to cheer for people who shoot up a graveyard for no reason. I guess it's supposed to be a family bonding moment or something, or show that the girls are familiar with firearms. But there are better ways to do that than showing them needlessly destroying centuries-old gravestones and monuments. I think that's as good of a reason as any to invoke the wrath of the undead. (For the record, that's not why they invoke the wrath of the undead. But still - they had it coming.) And oh yeah, Alice wears a stupid hat.
So, Malice didn't work for me. It feels like there's a decent amount of effort on display, but it's just too ambitious for it's own good. Things either never come together, or when they do, it's in a distracting flurry of bad CGI. It's a hard film to get into, and hard to recommend.
I would not recommend this film.
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