Malefique (2002)
Sub-Genre- Evil Book/Stupid Readers
In Attendance- Me...
Cast Members of Note- More French people that I don't recognize... I'm beginning to feel less worldly than I thought I was. The four leads were fantastic though.
What's it about?- Four French guys are in a prison cell together; One is retarded and likes to eat everything he sees; another has tits, real ones, and is in love with the retarded guy; another is an older guy who likes to get anally explored by the one with tits; and the last one is just some average guy who loves his family back home. Wow, he's kinda boring.
They find a book one night when the tranny tries to rape the new guy, and knocks a brick loose from the wall. It's a creepy old book, full of french writing and satanic-like drawings throughout, written long ago by a serial killer who loved black magic as much as he did killing women for their placentas.
They begin to read the book, thusly starting fires, and making all sorts of creepy shit happen. It's the retard that steals the show though... Not only does he piss his bunk, soaking the tranny below him, but he gets his fingers chewed off by a wall, and when he eats some of the books pages (because he's fucking retarded), he becomes human oragami.
I wont ruin the ending here, mostly because the last scene blows, but I will say that the Unicorn Army was a nice touch; I never knew their horns both shot rainbow lazers and produced frozen custard!
The Good- Not counting the last two scenes, I absolutely loved this movie. It's brilliant in many ways, the least of which was keeping things interesting and tense with most of the movie being set in one room.
The characters, and more so the actors that played them, carried this movie, and made it horror gold on a minuscule budget. Criminals for sure, but I actually cared about what happened to them for the most part.
The mood/atmosphere/ambiance got pretty creepy once you realize that the book they're messing with is something evil as all hell. I wanted to know more about the book, to see where it lead them, where it came from... but the teases we got were more than effective.
The Bad- I think the very end was a bit of a cop out. I was wanting a more cataclysmic resolution, a harsh payment called due for messing with the book; what I got was something that felt like an old Twilight Zone episode.
The Downright Horrendous- Fuck that doll. Seriously.
The Gory- Some good stuff here, although it wasn't over plentiful; a wall that eats fingers, various lacerations and cuts, painting with innards, one guy gets turned into a human pretzel, and a reverse aging scene that was pretty creepy.
The Naked- Other than a guy with tits breastfeeding a retard, nothing.
What did we learn?- Don't mess around with magic; leave that for Chriss Angel (No one really cares if he dies.)
Rating- B I want to give this one an A, because right up until the very end it deserved it, but it's not happening. Check this out for sure though; even with the LAME last couple of minutes, it's leaps and bounds better than 95% of the American horror were subjected to.
Final Thoughts- Not everyone who is in prison is deserving of our hatred.
