Malum(2023)
2023 · Anthony DiBlasi · 92 min
A rookie police officer willingly takes the last shift at a newly decommissioned police station in an attempt to uncover the mysterious connection between her father's death and a vicious cult.
Horror
5.5168 votes
TMDB score
4/5
Intensity
3/5
Gore
3/5
Stays with you
How Malum scares
It opens quiet, with a rookie cop alone in an old, soon-to-be-closed police station, and that emptiness does a lot of the early work. As the night goes on, the calm cracks apart into hallucinatory visions, cult imagery, and sudden jolts that hit harder because of how still things were before. The fear leans into helplessness and losing your grip on what's real, with some rough, physical moments mixed in once the cult's violence comes into focus. It's a good pick if you like slow-building dread that pays off with a string of nasty, unsettling scares rather than nonstop action.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Malum rates psychological 4/5, visceral 3/5, gore 3/5, lingering effect 3/5, and overall intensity 4/5.
- Psychological: 4 of 5
- Visceral: 3 of 5
- Gore: 3 of 5
- Lingering: 3 of 5
- Intensity: 4 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 55 of 100 — balanced
Supernatural vs Real-world: 15 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 60 of 100 — leans Disturbing
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
Starts tense from the very first minutes and keeps ratcheting up with little real relief, building to a punishing, chaotic final stretch.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4.
How scary is Malum?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, Malum rates 4/5 — one of the more punishing watches in the catalog, balancing creeping dread with well-placed shocks. It works on both fronts, unsettling the mind while going for the body. Expect it to be moderately gory and genuinely disturbing. Some of it will follow you to bed, but it lets go within a day or so.
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