A sequel with some retro vibes…but is that enough?

It’s rare that I don’t automatically buy sequels to franchises already in my collection, so the third Malevolence was a release day purchases. And if it weren’t for my damn OCD, I would re-evaluate my obligations to franchises.

MALEVOLENCE 3: KILLER (2018)

For me personally, Steve Mena’s trilogy, planned from the start, just never found its footing after the fantastic first film. Part 2, Bereavement, which was actually a prequel, was an entirely different film rather than the amazing love letter to 80s slashers that the first film was. Instead it was too much of a repetitive torture porn for me and I struggled to get through it.

Part 3, like Halloween II 1981, is a direct sequel that picks up right where the first film left off, complete with a flashback clip to the end of Malevolence and the killer escaping to continue his bloodbath.

But instead of Halloween II, what we get is more like the messy installment known as Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. The good news is that the intense suspense and classic slasher vibe Mena brought to his first film is back, making the kill scenes stylistically like the original Halloween and Friday the 13th films right down to the camera angles, setup shots, and music score. Yep, still love Mena’s talent for horror atmosphere.

However, a series of victims we never get to connect with is tossed at us left and right as the killer mostly targets a bunch of kids who conveniently pass in and out of one house. Their “plot lines” are virtually nonexistent, and they somehow never realize that people are being murdered in like every room.

Meanwhile, detectives searching for the killer end up at the house of Adrienne Barbeau, whose cameo does nothing to elevate the film. She’s simply a vessel to get the detectives aimed in the right direction.

Making the film even more disappointing is that the killer isn’t an ominous, mysterious presence. We know his entire backstory from the previous films, and we know what he looks like because he doesn’t wear a mask. He’s simply a jerk with a knife who could as easily have played the role of one of the victims as the killer.

To add insult to injury, the overly long final scare scene is a dream sequence! Ugh!