Malevolent
Director: Olaf De Fleur
Year Released: 2018
Rating: 1.0
Siblings Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) and Angela (Florence Pugh) run a fraudulent "ghost investigator" service (not unlike Ghost Hunters on SyFy) and pretend to speak to the deceased to console the living (for cash, of course) ... except one day they're approached by an older woman to examine her haunted house and Angela starts to actually "see" spirits. It goes through as many horror clichés as it can think of before arriving at its ludicrous conclusion, in which the old lady turns out to have a thing for sewing mouths shut and little ghost girls just so happen to possess impressive screaming power. I'd pay to watch Pugh try to assemble a crossword puzzle blindfolded - I think she's one of the best young actresses working right now - but not even she can make this canned effort even mildly unnerving; Lloyd-Hughes needs to stop smirking in every shot.
