Ringworm7

I watched Blind Malice when it came out on Amazon Prime, marked as a 2016 movie. When I had finished watching, as usual I hopped over here to IMDb to check the reviews and message boards, and to ask some questions. It's all blank! (As of 3/14/16 at least.) How can this be? Blind Malice is a fairly good murder mystery, and the way it's filmed and edited puts the viewer in the lead actress' place pretty well.

Gracie is partially blind, but can see some light and dark. She's fairly well-skilled in getting around and can trace over writing on paper to "read" some of the letters. Gracie and her grandmother go on a trip to clear out one of her father's rental properties. While there, the grandmother heads out to a store for a few things, and Gracie runs outside after the family dog, gets turned around a bit, but a stranger in the woods saves her from injuring herself. Gracie's no prude, and smokes a joint while her grandmother is out.

Around bedtime, Grandma realizes she forgot to get cigarettes. Gracie takes sedatives for trauma - from all the flashbacks she starts having, we learn that she had lived in this house before. Between the sedatives and the pot, Gracie nods off in the bath - and this is where the movie really begins. What's really happening? Why did the stranger come in the house, what happened to Grandma? Wait, what?! I tried to follow the plot, again ... and again ... and again. The movie really twists and turns. It gets very disturbingly violent for a while. There's a thread of a child-molestation scandal all throughout the movie, at different depths - it gets deep. The ending was pretty powerful, and somewhat redemptive.

The best thing about Blind Malice is the film-making. It's shot and edited to let you experience the world much as Gracie does. While not always totally distorted, the film is dark, sometimes blurry, sometimes grainy during regular scenes, just enough so you can never quite see everything properly. I found myself leaning forward, squinting, turning my head, then realized that's what Gracie was doing, so bravo for that! Also, the sounds are recorded and edited so that we hear much more background and ambient noise than usual, I imagine it's similar to the heightened sound sense of a blind person, The more stressed Gracie is, the worse the picture and the louder the tiniest sounds, which makes it downright scary and unnerving at time. Never thought one simple footstep could hold so much meaning! It made me creepily aware of every sound all that night and the next day.

Overall, I think this is a good horror/thriller with enough plot twists to satisfy. It's slow-paced, then plunges forward like a roller coaster out of control. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, it's just another "cabin in the woods" flick, NOPE, think again.

The actress who portrays Gracie is so interesting, I was riveted by her the entire movie. She really made me feel for her.

The title "Banshee Chapter" intrigued me, though the poster gave away the jump scares. (I saw this on Amazon, I can imagine it was better in the theatre and in 3D.) The MK-Ultra hook grabbed me, because I remember when the CIA documents were released via the Freedom of Information Act and President Clinton actually apologized to the country. However, it was when I saw the term "numbers stations" I knew I had to see this movie.

Shortwave radio has been a fascination of mine since childhood. Having ham radio enthusiasts for parents means you get a few old radios to "play" with. The shortwave frequencies fascinated me endlessly because you could hear the cosmos, using radio astronomy you could hear pulsars, quasars, supernovas ... pretty cool, right? I'd listen for rhythms in the chaos, moving the dial the slightest of notches.

Then I found the "numbers stations." And this is why I give this movie 9/10. That's only -1 for everything other reviewers complain about. Numbers stations are real, and they are quite spooky when you find them. The station used prominently in this movie is REAL, you can find it for yourself. I had listened to that station so often, for so many years, I'd had so many dreams and nightmares about it, that it made the movie feel very, very real to me. I'm pretty sure the film makers were counting on some audience members' familiarity with shortwave numbers stations, or with mind-altering drugs, to give it a boost.

I recommend this movie to all my friends, *after* I play them a few numbers stations ... they say the movie is horrifying, truly scary. Great use of real facts, events and real news clips in an otherwise standard horror flick. Google "CONET Swedish Rhapsody" before watching and listen for a real scary treat at 2:48 in the recording, then watch Banshee Chapter.