Starring: Jessica Sula, Natalie Victoria, Candice Coke
When Director Anthony DiBlasi’s creep-tastic LAST SHIFT hit the scene in 2014 (unintentional rhyme), I was blown away by its presentation & overall chill-factor. Let’s face it: there’s nothing freakier (at least to me anyway) than being the sole individual manning a particular overnight post when some seriously frightening things are happening. Self-sanity comes into question, and then there’s the act of self-preservation, and DiBlasi managed to tap into the most effective bits of psyche-rattling, and it worked. I maintained that it was one of the best horror films to come out that year and I’ll still stand by it – so what does one do for an encore? You REMAKE the film! You read that correctly – and if you want the lowdown on the newest presentation called MALUM, feel free to step inside this tomb of information and see for yourselves.
Now, anyone could easily wonder why a film that was released 9 years ago needed to be remade – and my answer to that is “why the hell not?” DiBlasi takes the original product, and amps it up with bigger scares, a little more gore and an overall sense of dread that has been lacking in many of the assembly-line junk that’s been dropped in our laps as of late. Better yet is that MALUM delves into the backstory so that the audience can get a further grasp on what it is that is scaring the cheeze-whiz out of them. This version stars Jessica Sula as Officer Jessica Loren, and her job (which is her first with the department) is to act as the lone Police representative at the now-closed station for the night while the remainder of evidence & biohazardous materials are collected before everything is up & running at the new building. All emergency phones have been re-routed, and we’re all thinking her night should be a breeze…but, we all know nothing acts that way in a horror film now don’t we?
Turns out that the demons that will play an integral part in this film aren’t the only ones that Jessica has to deal with – her father (former officer as well) had some “complications” if you will, when it came to the satanic cult that ran amok a year ago, led by the undeniably spooky leader, John Malum (Chaney Morrow). The cult’s suicide has left a bit of a dark cloud over the station, and tonight’s the night that cloud is going to rain red. Fans of the 2014 presentation should be able to follow along with the story at ease, and that’s not to say that you can’t jump into this without having seen the prior version – it just assists with the backstory. The biggest difference is providing a reason why Loren’s character is disliked by her co-workers (thanks, DAD!) – this film is simply the previous one – reshot with different pieces in motion and WOW, does it work wonders – intently scary and unapologetic in essence – you have simply GOT to kill all the lights in your house and play this one in the dead of night to enhance its presence – it’s just that good.
Overall, MALUM as of right now stands out as my top-pick for best horror film of 2023, and I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s going to take something with a big ol’ set of fangs & claws to knock this off of the top-spot. It will be released in limited theaters on March 31st, and is destined for streaming services shortly afterwards – do yourselves a favor and lock your eyes on it when it’s near you…damndest thing is this one will stare right back at you.
At the tender age of 6, Matt was indoctrinated into the horror genre by his mother, who asked him to sit down and watch "The Exorcist" with her - ever since then, it's been a blood-soaked, neon-lit, fever dream of an existence. "You don't make horror...horror makes you."
(Can't remember who came up with this quote, but he was probably off-kilter like I am).
