• Straight to Video
• Director: Steve Sessions
• Written by: Steve Sessions
• Running Time: 75 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Jeff Dylan Graham, Lilith Stabs, Cynder Moon, Lucien Eisenach, Jonathan Watts Bell, Sequoia Rose Fuller, Dawn DuVurger, Steve Sessions, Mike Kisielewski

I remember reading about "Malefic" back in 2003 and being absolutely floored by the film’s premise. From the IMDB: Four criminals attempt the unthinkable -- ransoming the corpse of a dead child back to the family. But things take an even darker turn when they find an old spirit board at the cabin they are using for a hide-out.

It become abundantly clear that this was a film that I had to see. Steve Sessions, the director, had already garnered quite a following amongst b-movie fans for his "Cremains", "Torment" and "Dead Clowns", and with Malefic, it appeared that he was going to continue his streak of b-movie greatness. Saldy, to my surprise, it wasn’t meant to be. Sessions is an amazing director and writer, don‘t get me wrong, but he’s not content limiting himself to one genre or, sadly, one idea, and I’m afraid that is what might be his downfall as a filmmaker. With "Malefic" you get the sense that he wants to be all things to all people. You want a crime/heist picture? You got it. You want a gothic horror picture? You got it. You want elements of a creature feature? You got it. What about sexploitation? Yeah, it’s here too. Sadly, I think this is why the film doesn’t work despite its incredibly promising and innovative premise.

"Malefic" simply does not have the courage of its convictions, or rather, I believe, director Sessions did not have enough faith in his young cast. I think he was afraid that such a weighty idea -- a group of teens kidnap a corpse and try to ransom it back to the wealthy father -- was just too much to follow through upon, fearing that his amateur actors would not have the thespian chops to pull off the kind of honest and dramatic ending that this film deserved. By opting to turn the latter half of the film into a standard "Evil Dead" re-hash, Sessions loses the genuine vision that he opened the film with.

See, I wanted his original storyline to continue. I wanted fleshed out characters. I guess, more than anything I wanted to know what made these characters tick and, for sure, I wanted an honest resolution. Sessions completely misses his chance at some kind of real social commentary, in the same vein as Tim Hunter’s "River’s Edge" or Larry Clark’s "Kids", even though the opportunity was at his finger-tips. Sadly, Session pulls a heist on his own artistic vision by veering the film into more uninventive, mundane areas. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this film, but I find it discouraging that director Sessions chose to take the film in the direction that he did, with the finding of a Ouiji Board and the unleashing of a demon upon the group. In his grasp was the chance at some real social connotations of the hopelessnes felt by the small majority of the X-Y generation - a generation dominated by violent music, violent movies and even more violent videogames, and which produces kids like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The kind of kids that are represented here so authentically in "Malefic". By opting for a supernatural ending, with his actors retracing the same forested ground Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi covered twenty years earlier, Sessions misses his chance at greatness.

On the upside, there are elements of the film that I absolutely adored, including the narration by Lilith Stabs (2001's "Cremains"), posthumously, no less. It’s a cute and subtle twist on the story that both works to surprse as well as add another interesting perspective for secondary viewings. Some reviewers have claimed that the narration by Stabs is distracting, but for me it worked perfectly. In life, Stabs’ Lace character is phlegmatic, almost cold. In death, however, we are granted another dimension to her character. Beneath Lace’s thorny exterior, there seems a sense of regret -- like a ghostly apology delivered too late.

Harrah, played by Cynder Moon, and Burke, played by Lucien Eisenach (2003's "Psycho Santa"), round out the next two kidnappers. Sadly, they are seriously under-written and after a while we get the sense that they were more or less designed with the creature in mind (i.e. food). To his credit, Sessions does attempt to give Eisenach’s character some depth by hinting at his strained relationship with his dead father, but sadly, it is never fully developed and we are left wondering why it wasn‘t.

The best performance of the film belongs to Jeff Dylan Graham (2002's "Dweller"), who plays the quiet and androgynous Gage. This is an unforgettable exploration of a person uncomfortable in his own skin, a fragmented, imploding being who seems the only one able to grasp the moral and societal indignity he and his friends are committing. He’s scrawny, pathetic and smokes too much, but at his core, there seems to be a conscience. Gage seems drawn to represent the audience; watching the events from afar, taking note of the horror, and sensing the guilt. As the film unfolds, we are yearning for his character to undermine this atrocity, but sadly, he never gets the chance because Sessions does it for him.

Steve Sessions is skilled at creating atmosphere, and the music, which he composed himself, is really quite good and unsettling. Also, there are some neat twists in the story, especially one big one involving the dead little girl’s father, but it is all undermined by the creature in the woods nonsense of the end. Would I recommend the film? Of course. "Malefic" has elements of greatness to it, and director Sessions is an impressive and exciting director that I’m hoping with time and gained confidence, will come to understand and harness his potential, and maybe eventually make a truly great film. It’s apparent to me that Steve Sessions is an A-list director working in a b-movie arena. He simply needs to start making movies that reflect his talent. Malefic had the potential to be that movie.

For those interested in picking this one up, Sub Rosa released Malefic alongside Brandon Bethmann and Eric Szmyr’s "Raising Hell" as part of a B-Movie Theater Double Feature DVD. Check this one out.