Maléfique (2003)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

...to make a movie like that. MINIMUM SPOILERSThere were some CGIs which were bad even for the 2002.But when they served inmates (who are killers, etc.) meals on metal plates, with metal knives and metal forks in their cell, I had almost stopped watching.I mean how both the director and the guys who wrote the script were not smart enough to spot this detail and overlooked it.The rest of the movie was so-so, if you are into horror movies give it a try but don't expect nothing special.

I was really pumped to see this one and when I began watching it I realized it was not going so well...The characters may seem good at first, but they get boring and annoying after 10 minutes. Story was so slow that you forget what's the movie about. Characters do some stupid stuff that makes almost no sense sometimes. Atmosphere is not that great, it really gives you some promise, but the characters ruin it. Maybe too much light also. Movie is not bad BAD movie but to me it was not enjoyable at all. I usually love French movies, but this one was boring, at least to me! I'm not saying not to check it out cause you might like it but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought i would.

In a French prison cell a sociopathic transsexual with very large breast implants cuts off his insane lover's fingers, one by one, whenever his lover wishes to spend some time in the prison's infirmary. His lover, a giggling mentally-challenged masochistic mess, had been raised in a pig-sty, and when he had escaped from it the first thing he saw was his little sister, whom he then proceeded to cannibalize. The transsexual occasionally "breast-feeds" this loon. The third celly is an old, quiet, well-educated geezer who killed his wife "during two minutes of dementia", and who blames books for the murder. The old man allegedly isn't gay, but he occasionally requires the sociopath to sodomize him, simply because "it means I make choices which means I have freedom".You get the picture.Yes, this is very much a French movie. No opportunity is missed to wallow in perversion, debauchery, sexual violence, degradation and gore, that's how movies are made over there, especially in recent years. What is it with the French psyche that makes them so over-the-top nuts? Their cinema has become the no.1 world leader in perversion and sadism, even Japanese films can't compare, and if you think this is a coincidence, think again. Two words: French Revolution.The scene of the retarded kid eating his little sister is strangely absent from the movie, but don't think it's because the director thought it was too tasteless. Most likely the reason was so all the events stay within the prison walls. Otherwise we would have doubtlessly been forced to watch that, too, in all its full big-screen "glory".While the movie is well-acted and interesting, the first half has to be somewhat endured rather than enjoyed. Watching old men getting nailed by a muscular transsexual with large droopy boobs is not my cup of tea by any means, so it's almost a relief when the movie finally moves into horror-movie territory. The last half hour is a marked improvement over the preceding events, turning this into quite an original horror flick.And yet I believe there was potential for a much better movie. If only a competent, level-headed American or British director had tackled this script. (I am not implying this director is incompetent, but merely French.) That could have resulted in a brilliant horror film, without all the unnecessary "French perversion baggage".

A prison cell.Four prisoners-Carrere,a young company director accused of fraud,35 year old transsexual in the process of his transformation, Daisy,a 20 year-old mentally challenged idiot savant and Lassalle,a 60 year-old intellectual who murdered his wife.Behind a stone slab in the cell,mysteriously pulled loose,they discovered a book:the diary of a former prisoner,Danvers,who occupied the cell at the beginning of the century.The diary contains magic formulas that supposedly enable prisoners to escape."Malefique" is one of the creepiest and most intelligent horror films I have seen this year.The film has a grimy,shadowy feel influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft,which makes for a very creepy and unsettling atmosphere.There is a fair amount of gore involved with some imaginative and brutal death scenes and the characters of four prisoners are surprisingly well-developed.It's a shame that Eric Valette made truly horrible remake of "One Missed Call" after his stunning debut.9 out of 10.