MALUM - Mark Reviews Movies

Malum, Welcome Villain Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 30, 2023

It's strange to see a remake arrive less than a decade after its source material, but such is the case with Malum, which sees co-writer/director Anthony DiBlasi rework his 2015 movie Last Shift. Some of the thinking is understandable, since the original movie was a direct-to-video affair with several limitations that, to his credit, DiBlasi worked around with some effectiveness. This new version clearly has a larger budget and is getting a theatrical release, but more to the point, DiBlasi shows that he has considered some fundamental changes to the narrative that clarify and raise the stakes of the original tale. It also brings some new issues, though.

In a perfect world, there's probably a middle ground between the 2015 movie and this remake—one that incorporates most of the filmmaker's alterations, while also retaining a bit more of the first movie's sense of mystery. To be clear, this one's about the same level of general quality as its predecessor. While the original really came to life with its final act, though, the remake is pretty strong up until the point that the movie suddenly feels the need to explain and literalize the supernatural ideas happening beneath the surface.

The setup here is essentially the same, in that a rookie cop named Jessica Loren (Jessica Sula) has been assigned the last shift at an old police station before it's shut down for good. While the original basically threw us right into the basic premise with only a little bit of back story, DiBlasi and his co-screenwriter, the late Scott Poiley (who also co-wrote the first movie), expands the exposition a bit and alters Jessica's past a lot.

A prologue set about a year prior shows us her cop father (played by Eric Olson), having recently rescued three young women from a murderous cult, succumb to some internal or external demons. There's a moment of extreme, gory violence that happens with such unexpected suddenness that the only way to ruin the shocking surprise of it would be to recount the scene in excruciating detail. That's the first of several tricks that display DiBlasi's cleverness in implementing that tired cliché of the jump-scare in such a way that the moment actually elicits the intended effect.

As for the plot, it's made much clearer here, while also ensuring that the stakes are more immediate than just watching our protagonist wander around the station and waiting for something frightening to happen. It has been a year since the death of the cult leader, and the city is being overrun by members looking to commemorate his death and/or to seek retribution for it. The steps of the new police station are filled with cult members, so when Jessica's new boss (played by Britt George) says that the department has more important matters with which to deal, we get that she's probably going to be alone in this place, no matter what might happen.

A good amount does happen. Jessica starts looking for answers as to why her father became a killer without warning, and in the process, she starts digging into the cult, their actions, and the deaths of its leader and some of its key players. A homeless man (played by Kevin Wayne) finds his way inside the station, looking for something or, maybe, someone. Meanwhile, the surviving cult members are starting an assault on the new police station, with concerns that they might attack the old one soon, and Jessica receives what seem to be prank phone calls at first, although it soon becomes clear that the cult wants to finish a bloody job her father stopped about a year ago.

This time around, the plot doesn't simply feel like a thin excuse for a series of scares, strange occurrences, and odd visions, and that goes a long way to establishing and maintaining a sense of suspense. Sula's performance, which gradually and convincingly ratchets up the psychological and emotional distress of this long night, helps a lot, too, but most of the effect comes down to the atmosphere established by DiBlasi and cinematographer Sean McDaniel in the way they use long hallways, confined spaces, and the harshness of fluorescent lighting. One scene, which is set in a cramped holding cell, only uses a flashlight as a source of illumination, and while we're trying to gather who or what is providing that light, the filmmakers don't even let us realize the whole thing is a distraction from a scare that's coming from somewhere else entirely.

Obviously, the routine here becomes predictable and repetitive despite some neatly staged scenes, such as one that has Jessica watching a video in which the participants seem to know she's watching—before it starts watching her. The build-up to the finale, re-tinkered in a way that gives us too much time to think about the mechanics of its twist and leaves far too many of those new storylines left dangling, reveals far too much about the cult, their goals, and whether or not their beliefs are based in reality.

That's a mistake, turning the third act into a confounding and over-the-top showcase of blood and gruesome makeup. Malum may do some things differently and even better than its source, but ultimately, it's as if DiBlasi has forgotten that a major reason this material is creepy and unsettling is the sense of mystery within it.

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