User Reviews

Malefique pretty much has the viewer from start to finish with its edgy atmosphere. Nearly the whole movie is set in a prison cell revolving around 4 characters of which transvestite Marcus and his little retarded boy are way out the strangest. Soon the inmates find a diary of a previous inmate behind a brick which deals with his obsession of occult and black magic themes leading to his escape from the cell. From here on everything deals with uncovering the secret of the book and its spells to flee from prison. That leads to some accidents on the way out of the cell into the unknown light.

Honestly I think the story is rather poor and the final twist is nice but to me the ends are pretty loosely tied together. Anyway I was thrilled until the last moment because the atmosphere of the movie is unique with minimal setting and cast. The kills are raw and eerie... its doesn't take gore to chill your spine and the occult themes are also done very well and reminded me of the hell themes in Hellraiser. Malefique has a claustrophobic and cold dirty feel with greenish tint. At times you wonder if the real or the occult world depicted here is stranger... when the retarded boy looses his fingers and is lulled to sleep sucking on Marcus breasts it seems normal, so how strange can glowing gates to freedom be? With its budget the movie creates a unique atmosphere and chills the viewer in a very different way than most of the genre shockers do. I just wish the story had led to a more consistent finale. Several elements like the visitor with the camera, the other inmates obsession with books and the toy doll vaguely pointing to the end don't fit tight in the story. Anyway, I'll keep my eyes open for other movies from director Valette, although its a turn-off to see he's is doing a Hollywood remake of "One missed call" which was worn off and useless already in the Miike-version.

I really don't have any clue why this feature got so many positive reviews and is even considered as a cult movie by some. There are many great fantasy and horror movies coming from such as "Vertige", "Proie", "Vidocq" and many more but this movie simply can't catch up with these movies.

The movie kicks off quite slow and introduces some more or less interesting characters that share a cell in an ugly French prison. First of all, it is quite exaggerated to show this kind of prison as the French prisons are surely not used to be this disgusting. That's where we have the first little goof.

Four prisoners share this cell. The businessman Carrère that got in prison because of a fraud. He is played by Gérald Larouche who simply gives a bad interpretation of the character that seems quite faceless and stupid. He wants to break free from prison to pick up his son from his wife that is asking for a divorce. This idea is just stupid as everybody knows that he would never be able to see his son again if he breaks out from prison and break into the house of his wife. The emotions of the man that suffers from the divorce and the separation from his son are not at all played in a realistic manner and slows down the movie and makes me lose interest from the beginning on.

The second prisoner is the intellectual Lassalle who worked in a library. One morning, he decided to randomly kill his wife. This character is just strange. First, he doesn't want to read the strange book that they find and then suddenly he wants to. He seems to dominate the angry Marcus in the beginning but later gets abused by the same without saying a word. At least, this character portrayed by Philippe Laudenbach is intriguing but he doesn't act in any normal manner.

Prisoner number three is the drag Marcus portrayed by the famous Clovis Cornillac who does a fairly good job here. We don't get to know much about him and his character isn't so well developed. We don't know why he is so attached to the retarded cell inmate Pâquerette or what crime he committed. The character seems interesting but isn't developed as profound as it should have been.

The last prisoner is the retarded Pâquerette portrayed by Dimitri Rataud. This character is well played. He is a retard that ate his own sister. But it's not logical at all that this guy is in a normal prison with three inmates. That doesn't make any sense, especially as Marcus cuts off the fingers of Pâquerette. The reason why he does it isn't quite clear to me, too. Anyway, a fragile character that gets butchered like this can't stay in a prison cell with three other inmates. He would be a danger for himself and the others and would need permanent surveillance. Once again, this is a point where the movie doesn't make much sense.

After so many strange characters that act in very senseless and unusual ways, the thin plot consists of finding an old book behind a brick inside the cell. Once again, this doesn't make any sense. First of all, modern prisons don't have this kind of bricks. Second, these prisons are inspected in detail by guards and other staff and they would have found the book without a doubt. Third, the book was caught in the walls probably eighty years ago and it's quite impossible that the prison didn't get renovated as time went by and the book stayed at the same place all the time. Once again, this doesn't make any sense.

The four characters find out that the book deals with black magic and the instantly believe in this and even if the first tries go horribly wrong, they are sure to be able to escape from prison with some of the formulae written in the book. It's really difficult to believe that the characters are that dumb and superficial.

I don't want to tell a punch but one of the guys dies during one of the first experiments with black magic. Instead of investigating, the prison guards believe the thin story that the guy fell from his bed and died and don't harm the other three prisoners. Seriously, once again, this is a horrible goof and doesn't make any sense at all.

In the end, each prisoner gets butchered and dies a horrible death instead of getting out of prison. There is some senseless violence and gratuitous gore for nothing and the movie ends with a surprising twist but with a rather stupid ending.

In the end, as you can see, there is not much positive or special to be told about this movie. The characters are mostly bad, the story is not credible and quite stupid and the movie has many goofs. I give a few points for Cornillac and Rataud, a few good special effects and the interesting apparition of the mysterious character Hippolyte Picus in the last third of the movie.

On the other side, don't believe the positive hype around this movie. It's true that there are many amazing French horror and fantasy movies but this one is one of the worst I have seen in my life. Don't buy this flick and don't even rent it even if the description of the story seems intriguing. Go for "Le Pacte Des Loups", "Eden Log", "Proie" or any other French horror or fantasy movie of your choice instead.

had to see this cos it looked like a great scary premise- prisoners finding magic book,oo err! claustrophobic terror ensues, etc.

but there didn't seem to be a story to go along with the great idea. rather than chilling/physcological horror, it relied on effects out in the open- fire and OTT body horror- , which didn't scare at all if your over 12.

The logic at the end is ridiculous, with characters being killed off for nothing other than bodycount. waste of good characters- which were the best thing about this film.

obviously low budget, which doesn't spoil it, the film really goes nowhere, and- icant believe im going to say this- it needs a Hollywood remake. you simply loose interest in this version. definitely not in the same league as other french films coming out in the last few years like crimson rivers which were at least watchable/entertaining, malefique isn't watchable to the end to be honest. and i bet you can guess the ending before you have watched the film. really really disappointing- impossible to recommend.

~Spoiler~

Stop me if you've heard this one: A cannibal, a transsexual, and a business owner are trapped in a cell...okay, it's no joke. But it is the plot of Malefique, a French import from director Eric Vallette. The three characters I mentioned earlier, along with a professor with an unhealthy thirst for knowledge, are all cellmates in a French prison. During a scuffle, a loose stone falls out of the wall revealing the diary of a former prisoner. The diary is also a spellbook which may help them escape, or drive them all mad. I have to say it was an intriguing concept that kept me involved throughout. Malefique has the feel of a Clive Barker or H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. I don't know if by the end I found it to be up to par with their work, but it has its merits. It's a testament to the writing and the actors that a movie which takes place in primarily one small room is so interesting. And the ending is as dark and nihilistic as all the other French offerings as of late. I would recommend this to anyone searching for something different.

This film centers on four criminals, locked away in a prison who desire escape from their cell, hoping that a mysterious book of black magic, penned by a former inmate around 1920, named Danvers who wanted to use spells to keep his skin young.

Carrère's(Gérald Laroche)criminal business tactics(shortcuts)have landed him in prison with three oddball cell-mates..a transsexual brute Marcus(Clovis Cornillac), Marcus' love-toy Pâquerette(Dimitri Rataud)who eats objects he touches(..and is in prison for eating his six-month old sister)and obeys his charge as if "he" were his mother, and the scholarly Lassalle(Philippe Laudenbach)who doesn't read, or eat breakfast(..the latter being that he murdered his wife during that time of the day). The film follows Carrère as he reads from the book, attempting to understand it's meanings hoping to find an exit from his prison. Carrère loves his child, and for a while believes his wife will get him out early on bail. When she betrays him, Carrère begins to slowly seethe with hate, and longing to see and hold his beloved son. Carrère's toughest critic is Marcus, who longs to be fully female, while still folding to several masculine traits, such as working out and taking a leak standing up. He talks tough and uses his muscle as a type of fear tactic, although deep inside is a world of vulnerability. Pâquerette is completely under Marcus' control and behaves like a canine to it's master..there's even an alarming scene where Pâquerette breast-feeds from Marcus! Lassalle is an unraveling mystery, opening up for us to slowly understand his ulterior motives and what lies within his possibly sinister brain. Clearly intellectual, and holding possible secrets from the others, Lassalle is actually the one who keeps the motivation of pursuing the secrets of the book going. Soon, those who aren't a threat to the book seek their "true" escape, not as much from the cell of four walls, but the cell that imprisons their true desires. After a certain murder, the book is thrown from the room with a very fascinating character entering the film with a camcorder as if he were a new occupant..who is this person and how does he understand the power of a book tosses away, and better yet, how to use it? A constant in this film is each of the prisoners often seen throughout looking out their window into the world just out of reach.

I'm glad I had a chance to watch this film. It does play out like "Monkey's Paw", the characters get what they desire, but a price must be met. There's gore in the film, startling moments of graphic violence, but, in my opinion, this is first and foremost a story-driven tale. The gore is a product of what the book unleashes. One of the group gets his limbs twisted while suspended in the air, while a grisly opening act displays the carnage left in the wake of one man's desire. We see Danver's fate at the end, with a magnificent special effects sequence regarding an infant melting away. Lassalle's fate is a masterful effects sequence. I will say that Maléfique, through Eric Valette's well paced direction, always kept my attention, and, for being such an isolated movie(..about 95 % of the film takes place in a singular location, the prison cell)it never seems to drag. I guess that's a testament to interesting actors and fascinating characterizations, not to mention a compelling story using the supernatural to drive them.

...to make a movie like that.

MINIMUM SPOILERS

There 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.

If you're one of those who recognise with pleasure such arcane titles as 'Book of the Dead', 'Book of Eibon' or 'Necronomicon', then you should feel right at home with Malefique, a film which also features an occult tome, one with the power to change the destinies of all involved. Discovered by four French prisoners sharing a cell, the fearsome object has been placed in the wall there by Danvers, a serial killer incarcerated back in the 1920s; a man obsessed with rejuvenation and the black arts before he abruptly vanished. Finders of the book are Carrère (Gérald Laroche) a company embezzler shopped by his wife, Lassalle (Philippe Laudenbach) who aspires to be a woman but at the same time body-builds to execute an escape plan, the halfwit Pâquerette (Dimitri Rataud) who once ate his baby sister, and the 'librarian' Marcus (Clovis Cornillac), supposedly driven mad by reading, who murdered his wife. Reminding the viewer of Meat Loaf's equally bizarre, bosomy male in Fight Club (1999), Lassalle begins as the dominant member of the quartet, one who is especially protective of the infantile Pâquerette. With the coming of the book however, and the overarching need to decipher its dangerous contents, Marcus assumes greater and greater significance. At first assured of an early bail, meanwhile Carrère takes little more than academic interest in events. Suddenly he too needs an urgent escape option and, as the prisoners experiment, Danvers' book starts to reveal some of its terrifying powers...

Staged for the most part within a prison cell, and between four or five characters, Malefique has a claustrophobic air entirely suited to its subject matter (as well as the limited budget of the filmmakers). Only at the start and then at the conclusion do we get to leave the confines of the cell, a necessary opening out which only serves to emphasise the doomed, closed-in nature of proceedings elsewhere. More than anything, this is a film about being trapped, either as a victim of your criminal past or of occult events now unfolding. "I'm going to escape," says Carrère at the start of the film, wishing more than anything to be able to rejoin his wife and son. Whether or not he does it will be at a terrible price, and the great irony of the film is that the ultimate form of an 'escape' may not be one a man might imagine.

With all its budget limitations it is greatly to the first-time feature director Eric Vallette's credit that his film succeeds as well as it does. As critics have noticed, it is a film with strong Freudian overtones - Lassalle's distinctive mammaries and adult breast feeding for instance; the picture of a vagina which comes to life and develops an eye; the grown man who dissolves back into a foetus; Danvers' original placenta fetish; the dark cell as a primitive womb from which 'delivery' is awaited, etc. With so many interesting aspects to the script Vallette hardly puts a foot wrong, and he succeeds in creating a genuinely unsettling atmosphere out of what, when one comes down to it, is just a matter of four guys, four bunks, one folding table and a book. There's a genuine, growing, Lovecraftian frisson as the men summon up the unnameable darkness from within its pages, while one or two moments - the aforementioned blinking vagina, or what ultimately happens to Pâquerette - are unsettlingly memorable. The pacing of many of the dark events in Malefique is deliberate, rejecting the rapid cutting of many Hollywood productions: a video culture approach that often subverts the horrified gaze in favour of quick-fix action and gore. Perhaps this is a particularly European manner, as one recalls a similar, measured approach to shocking hallucination taken in such films as Verhoeven's The Fourth Man (1983) - a film that incidentally also shares a particularly nasty image based around a prolapsed eye.

Lensed well in 1.85:1, Malefique benefits from excellent performances and, if for this viewer at least, the conclusion was not as explainable as it might have been, the journey to the final shot was worth taking. Coming so soon after the release of the similarly well-received Haute Tension (aka: Switchblade Romance, 2003), this is another reason to be grateful that good horror films are once again emerging from the French industry, this after a time when it seemed the only worthwhile product came from Asia

You know, I'm usually very tolerant with foreign movies, in order to respect their own style of filmmaking. However, in this case, the best I can say is: what a bad movie. There is simply NO story to be told; instead, there are just a bunch of prisoners acting crazy and trying to figure out what the signs mean-- which doesn't matter for the spectator anyways. Also, directing is very lifeless, delivering just some boredom scenes that are quite vague. In my opinion, the lack of argumentation is what doesn't let this movie be anything useful. I'm just giving it two stars in respect for the actors that tried to do something decent, but weren't capable of for the reasons I just mentioned. Pass it, please.