April 5, 2009

REFLECTIONS on 4/26/24:

It was only several months into our first year as Icons of Fright that we discovered the film MALEVOLENCE. I was shopping at a local comic book store and saw an ad for a new Anchor Bay movie in theaters. Up until that point, Anchor Bay had never had a theatrical release; instead they focused on putting out DVD versions of already established 80’s slashers, classics, or uncut Dario Argento films. The poster art reminded me of MADMAN, so we decided to take a shot with this one and catch it on the big screen. For context, the only horror playing in theaters in 2004 were THE EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING and ALIEN VS PREDATOR, both… just awful. So I’d all but given up on the genre just as we were starting our genre website. But MALEVOLENCE… blew us away! It felt like a lost gem of a movie from the 80s. And it was scary!

Myself, Mike C., Vinny (Technoweenie) and our friend Chris Wilkie went to see it over and over again, each time bringing a new friend to watch their reactions. Eventually we learned it was written and directed by a fellow Long Islander! So we sought out Stevan Mena, I believe he was doing a Q & A after one of the screenings we attended, and when he explained this was the middle part of an intended trilogy, we all became obsessed with getting him to spill any details about the other two movies!

We interviewed him twice, along with all the cast members. MALEVOLENCE became one of the very first modern horror movies that the Icons of Fright crew truly embraced and championed. Around this same time, we had become friendly with New Jersey filmmaker Adam Barnick, who had also interviewed Mena for his personal site. One thing led to another and before we knew it, Adam was contributing regularly to the Icons family.

Because we were there from the beginning, Adam and I were fortunate enough to visit both the sets of Stevan’s next two films, BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY and later BEREAVEMENT aka MALEVOLENCE 2. It was so surreal to finally be on the location we’d both seen a dozen times from the original movie. To meet actor Brett Rickaby portraying the infamous Graham Sutter, and to watch them shoot a recreation of one of the first movie’s most distributing scenes. This was also one of the first shoots that Adam brough along his camera, interviewed some of the key participants and he edited it together as one of the very first original Icons of Fright exclusive videos. (Embedded below!) Stevan was pleased enough with it that it went on to be included as a bonus feature on all physical media releases of BEREAVEMENT.

After many, many years on a hard drive, we’re happy to dig up from the archives the original Icons of Fright behind-the-scenes video AND all of these personal photos from the set of BEREAVEMENT: MALEVOLENCE 2! ENJOY!