Welcome to the first installment of this recurring column. My intention with this is to hopefully point some readers in the direction of great movies they haven't heard of & to shine the spotlight on these films.

Malevolence: This movie will be difficult to find in theaters. But if it is playing nearby then you should run, do not walk, to see it. Director Stevan Mena takes us back to the days before the Halloween & Friday The 13th franchises sucked (Jason in space my left nut!). While he borrow liberally from both films, as well as Blair Witch & Psycho, he adds quite a bit with his spooky music designed to make the audience jump at the right moments. After an opening scene regarding missing children, the film unfolds on a gang of 4 bank robbers embroiled in a heist gone wrong & 2 carjack victims who stumble upon the felony debacle. Mena uses a cast of unknown, which gives little clues as to who will survive & the actors, provide much better performances than 1 would expect from a horror film. While the killer is not supernaturally durable like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, he does seem to exist only to kill. After a decade of whodunits packaged as slasher flicks (Scream), Malevolence is a much-needed throwback that conceivably becomes a franchise itself.

2LDK: It may be short (the film's running time is only 70 minutes), but director Yukihiko Tsutsumi takes the black comedy of Heathers to nasty new heights. Dealing in pure minimalism with only 2 cast members; we come upon 2 Japanese actresses who share an apartment. They are vying for the same role in a movie & trying to hook up with the director. Tsutsumi gives us each woman's inner thoughts as they belittle every statement the other makes. Tensions rise as little annoyances such as using a roommate's shampoo or eating their clearly labeled food without permission bring each woman to the brink of violence. The they fall over that brink. This is not movie violence. There are no Uma Thurman versus Chiaki Kuriyama choreographed fight scenes. Instead you get semi-realistic fighting. I say semi-realistic because I'm not sure how many homes have katanas & electric chainsaws in the living room. But there are hardcore beatings involving toilet lids, statuettes, cleaning products & bathtub electrocutions. Grindhouse movie violence has always been over the top, but watching Hasians (hot Asians) crack each other's skulls open is more entertaining that watching Jeebus get his ass kicked in a Mel Gibson movie.

R

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