Malefic/Raising Hell
Sub Rosa Drive-In Double Feature 
(Region 0 NTSC DVD)
(2003)
review by Busterface

Malefic

I have to admit that I did not have high hopes for this movie. Usually when studios put out double features or many movies on one DVD, that means that it is not the best of their product and they do not want to spend the money making more than one DVD. Maybe because I had this attitude going into the viewing that it impaired my opinion, but I really did not like this movie.

Four “goth” kids kidnap the corpse of a rich man’s 8 month old daughter. They take the cadaver to an old cabin in the middle of the woods, hoping to bribe the father into giving them a bunch of money in return for his daughter’s remains. But their plan goes awry when they discover an old journal and Ouija board under a bed. Of course they have to play with the board which unleashes an evil from the “underside”. The evil that is unleashed is a giant worm that chases the four kids around the cabin and around the woods killing them.

I have never seen more make-up on a dude than I saw on Jeff Dylan-Graham. To be totally honest I thought he was a pretty hot chick! He looked just like Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. Make-up aside, however, I thought that Jeff did a tolerable job acting. The real stinker as far as acting goes was Lilith Stabs! MY GOD!!! I would rather have a ballpoint pen shoved in my neck repeatedly than to have to watch her “act” ever again. She sounded like Thurston Howell III on downers.

The location in which the movie was shot at was wonderful. The cabin had a natural creepy feel to it on screen and was surrounded by dead trees, thick woods, a pond and other structures. I would have liked to seen the location better utilized, but that’s just my opinion.

Though I can not give this movie a recommendation, I did see the ambition and could really tell that Steve Sessions poured his heart into the project, and, believe it or not, I would watch another Sessions movie, but only WITHOUT Lilith Stabs.

Raising Hell

Ever wonder what it would be like if the Lifetime Channel made a horror movie? I have, and now I know!

Raising Hell has a very ambitious plot; A crooked governor who is worried about being indicted for racketeering holds The Keys of Solomon which allow the governor to control a beast from Hell, and he uses this control over the beast to eliminate all those who know about his wrong doings. The Church is also after The Keys and they hire a muscular, shade wearing, gun for hire to get them from the governor. Meanwhile, the wife of the governor has found out he has cheated on her and threatens to go to the press, a young college boy who works for the governor is trying to get to the bottom of the killings, and a young and beautiful police officer assists the frat boy in his adventure. There are so many stories within stories in this movie that at times I got a little discouraged.

What this movie really had going for it was the acting and the sets. The acting was incredible for a low budget movie. A lot of low budget movies end up casting actors that do not look the part, and when I read the back of the box I fully expected the governor to be a young kid in his grandpa’s clothes. But that was not the case and every actor was cast to fit the role they were playing; a task that is not easily done with zero budget. The sets were superlative, as the filmmakers were able to utilize beautiful, classy and elegant interiors, and I was astonished at the locations they were able to secure on a no budget picture. All in all Raising Hell proves that you can make a movie look interesting no matter what the budget.

Extras include:
Trailer
Commentary
Behind the scenes featurette
Outtakes.

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