Malum/Hunt Her, Kill Her review – double bill of low-budget, single-location horror

Welcome Villain Films presents two fright-fests, but tired tricks, bad acting and some head-banging repetition leads to hackneyed hokum

New horror-focused studio Welcome Villain are aiming to be the next Blumhouse, but judging by this double bill of early releases it could be a long road. Both aim to maximise low-budget returns by restricting themselves to a single location – an approach that worked very well recently for filling station ordeal Night of the Hunted, not to mention of course the apex of horror, The Shining. But in truth neither of these makes strong use of its chosen locale, and both are tired, borderline exhausted deployments of the audience-prodding, jump-scare bag of tricks.

Malum (★★☆☆☆), by director Anthony DiBlasi, at least gives its backstory a bit of welly. A reworking of his 2014 film Last Shift, it sees rookie police officer Jessica (Jessica Sula) choose to work a solo shift at the old precinct where her father went postal and gunned down a pair of colleagues. Disorder is breaking out all over town with acolytes of a satanic cult frothing over the imminent return of John Malum (Chaney Morrow), who died in the station in mysterious circumstances after her father dismantled his kidnapping ring.