Malice Review
Director: Mike Barker and Leonora Lonsdale
Date Created: 2025-11-14 21:39
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Malice Review: The six-episode series of Prime Video is a co-directorial work of Mike Barker and Leonora Lonsdale, and it features the cast of Jack Whitehall, David Duchovny, Carice van Houten, Christine Adams, and Raza Jaffrey. The narrative loosely resembled that of the holiday-gone-wrong family dramas, as the cheerful family hired a babysitter who slowly became a threat that the family never saw coming. It mixed up luxury villas, sunny beaches, and laid-back family hours with a stranger who hardly blended in with the family. But, unfortunately, the plot does not deliver that much to the audience as it was expected.
Malice Review
Malice on Prime Video sets in the story of a young Adam Healey, who is initially a stranger to the Tanner family; he is the one who comes to join them as they go on a trip. The beginning of a friendship quietly ends in an awkward situation. The series tries to unite calm, idyllic Greek settings with sinister secrets and sudden moments of disquietude. This juxtaposition has been successfully utilised in many thrillers, but in this case, it never achieves to be truly captivating. Instead, it is frequently perceived that the landscape is more engaged than the plot.
The concept of danger lurking in a warm, serene environment can be very captivating. But the Malice series employs this concept in the most hackneyed manner imaginable. The show has a go at shocking the audience, but always lands exactly where they expect it to be. There is nothing objectionable about the use of clichéd elements if the creativity is strong, but the tension here dissipates too quickly. The series has an intention to keep the audience in doubt, but the hints are falling into place much too deliberately, and the plot twists are not as surprising as they should have been.
The writing of the character of Adam is a major reason for the lack of thrill. The series suggests that he has trauma and resentment from his past, which, however, subtly leads him to the Tanner family, and with a hidden agenda. But rather than gifting us a complex villain, Prime Video’s Malice presents a flat, monolithic character with feelings that are almost the same for the entire duration. Jack Whitehall attempts to assume a more serious part, but his looks don’t completely synchronise with the atmosphere the narrative requires. For a thriller to be effective, the antagonist must either frighten, enchant, bewilder, or impress. Regrettably, Adam does none of those things for a long time.
Next to them, the Tanner family has to be included, of course. They are successful, wealthy, and smart, and yet throughout the series, they appear to be oddly oblivious to the warning signs that are right in front of them. This is a typical problem in “stranger in the house” thrillers, but the series Malice shows it in a manner that tries the viewer’s patience. Rather than slowly waking up to Adam’s odd behaviours, the family continues to act unusually passive until the situation spirals out of control. Their reactions seem to be late, and sometimes even unrealistic, which causes the story to lose its sharpness.
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The revenge theme is another aspect that lessens the impact of the show. The series sets up Adam’s reason for targeting Jamie Tanner so high that you expect something intense or emotionally heavy. But the moment the revelation arrives, it somehow feels very hollow. The justification is hurried, and the tale does not invest enough time in the dwelling of the emotional aspect of it. Instead of making us sympathise with Adam or losing our fear of him, the backstory merely slides by without leaving an impact.
The slow tempo of the Malice Series is another issue. The painstakingly slow pace is characterised by the length of the expository scenes and overlong stretches of silence. There are times when different versions, conversations, hints, and suspicions seem to go on and on without anything new being added. The central part of the series particularly gives the impression of being stretched, and the tension that should be gradually increasing just gets to keep on fading away. The series aims to make you alert, but its lagging pace puts you out of the game for the whole six episodes.
Naturally, once the story gets to the last chapter, you are already expecting a cutting and unforgettable twist that would wrap up everything. But, on the contrary, the ending seems to be hurried and strangely out of context. A number of incidents are happening back-to-back but without the emotional impact one would expect. Key events are treated lightly, and the ultimate result raises more questions than answers, not in a good and mysterious way, though, but in a “why did they skip this?” way. After such a slow and steady buildup, the ending needed to be of the rock-solid kind. Regrettably, it just slides past without giving the audience the reward that they rightly deserve.
Nevertheless, the show still has some redeeming qualities. The locations are breathtaking, sometimes the mood is quite spooky, and the foundation of the plot idea could work if it were supported with stronger dialogue. To some extent, the series reveals its aspiration to be dark, elegant and emotionally charged, but such moments are too brief to make a significant impact.
Prime Video Malice Review: Summing Up
At the end of the day, after watching the whole series, the feeling I got was more of being drained than of being thrilled. It is a horror that never actually turns to be horrifying. The performances lack continuity, the storyline takes a very predictable route, and the ending does not compensate for the long and slow trip. The combination of the bright locale with the threat lurking in the background might appeal to some spectators, but the general experience is still a weak and forgettable one.
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