Interview - Malum: Let’s talk with Anthony DiBlasi and Jessica Sula

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 21 march 2023

During the Malum press day we have the opportunities to interview the director Anthony DiBlasi and the main actress Jessica Sula.

Q :  Hello Jessica and Anthony, Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background ?

Jessica Sula : my name is Jessica Sula. I'm from Wales originally from Swansea.  I've started on a show called skins and I've just been doing it ever since.

Anthony DiBlasi : I'm Anthony DiBlasi. I've started my career working with Clive Barker producing with him for quite a few years. My first film was a film called Dread. That was based on one of his short stories so I'm kind of plugging away in the genre ever since trying to make scarier movies. 

Q : Can you sum up the film I a few words ?

Jessica Sula : I like to say it's Bonkers but in the best way bloody and terrify

Anthony DiBlasi :  it's a horror film that's meant to be for a mature audience for sure.

Q :   Malum is an expanded reimagining of Last shift. It succeeds in creating a truly eerie atmosphere with striking scenes and a perfectly mastered cast. We feel in this film a kind of homage to Clive Barker. Anthony please can you tell us about your influences for this film ?

Anthony DiBlasi : well you know it was funny. I think for the first movie, for Last shift, I was definitely influenced by a bit of Carpenter with Assault on Precinct 13 and I consumed a lot of documentaries on the Manson family. I think when you watch the first movie there's definitely a bit of a Nightmare in Elm Street homage in that. In this movie, I have creating more of a mystery. I think a movie that I like very much is Scott Derrickson's Sinister with Ethan Hawke. I like this film and I think my ears with Clive you know definitely influenced this movie a lot. I learned so much from him in the time I was with him that it's definitely me now. In my years where I am in my career I think like that has kind of settled on me in a more meaningful way with this movie.

Q :  Jessica, you are popular for the series Skins and the great Split, what attracted you to the script of this film and how did you prepare your character ?

Jessica Sula : well, at first I was nervous to take it because I didn't you know and just knew.  It was going to be a challenge and it was also physically be kind of it. It was really tiring at times just to have constant like blood on you and just I don't know holding things all the time like running. It was hot in that building and so I was nervous to take it. I know It's horror and I've done a few before but this was different this felt a lot more. There was a lot of like detective work for me to do and to prepare my character that way thinking about her father, thinking about this cult just piecing the year that she had before. I thought about that a lot like her grieving process and her decision to become a police officer and that sort of helped me. It was a lot to like build on and you know talking to Anthony he had such a clear vision and wanted to and was such a I don't know. You say you love working with actors and it does like really show like I always felt safe to be like infused if I didn't know what to do like he would have everything laid out and no beats that I had been thinking about myself but he's like you've been through X Y and Z before this point so I think talking to him knowing I would be in safe hands somebody wanting to make a whole character and that having that Dimension helps with the scares and helps you build the fear yourself because you're living in it. It felt like a challenge in that way. It was new taking on a lot more than I had before the only time. I'd take it on this so much with character work really was in the movie. I did Called Honey Trap which was completely different. It was not a harm and so you don't have to know. It didn't be terrified constantly you know.

Q :  What Can you tell us about your filming locations ?

Anthony DiBlasi : We were planning to shoot in Kentucky and I think a big part of the movie was to find an actual police station. We had done that in the first movie and that station was tiny. We shot that in Florida but it was an action station. I think but going into this we had that same they're all like certain wish listings it's really hard to recreate that kind of atmosphere on set or you know trying to fake it . It's challenging to be like hey I need a police station to shoot in because it's hard to get shooting like a whole like an active police station so that really dictates where you're going to go but we were really lucky to find this police station in Kentucky and it was huge. It was terrifying in the downtown area that's haunted. It's haunted but what's unique I think about police stations is at least from my point of view you feel like well these are government buildings like there are there should be a sense of consistency throughout a police station in every city town but there just isn't like you get into these stations and you almost feel like I don't know who's designing these places they've seen like every station feels so different. This station had its own personalities.

Jessica Sula :  It's like very disturbing to be but also have like a beautiful like blue brick.

Anthony DiBlasi : when you go into it you see all these strange things that are left behind and like blood on the wall in the hallway and you're like okay something happened here or like remnants of the prisoners and the cells and like they were six there was that  shelf the innocent Pew coats 

Jessica Sula :  you're like what you're just thinking. Well also it's where people are,  they're not , you're denied Freedom so there's that horrible like overhanging like there's an energy.

Anthony DiBlasi :  I just don't think like how do people live here everything of everything about us so that got into the film I'm sure

Q :  Which are for you the good ingredients to create a good horror movie ?

Jessica Sula : I mean you need all of the above. Do you make me think about all of the above.  Sometimes I think that's another thing you know. a lot of the times you're making a horror movie and everyone's just you just know. This is another run-of-the-mill like I'm not screaming but because you loved and care for the genre like that you made me think a lot about all the dimensions and not just like in a way.  I only watch if it's some like high brush like no I like to consume everything and you want to know like who is making it and if they love 

Anthony DiBlasi : it mean the cast is always very important right because if the cast sell it then no one will believe it watch wears .

Q : What were the main difficulties that you met during the making of this film ?

Anthony DiBlasi : it was very ambitious. It was an ambitious script for the schedule we had schedule and I didn't want to let up. I feel like with this movie it wasn't I didn't want to compromise very much so we kind of just put our head down like there's always like you know when you do that. There's like a scene in the movie that we literally shot we broke up in Four Seasons again. like a reward sequence because you know, I didn't want to cut it so it's always like let's just go back and shoot more. Let's just go back and shoot more it was a very ambitious schedule and she's on camera like 98% of the time

Jessica Sula :  and we did try and do things in like a decent order like you know story-wise but you're shooting things out of order and then towards the end that gets harder because you have continuity of the way I look like how distressed am I how much blood is on me so that though all those moments of just like making something and having to go off do this change this move around here we're Shifting The Crew up here and then at the same time maintaining a level. I have to be in it because we just have to go that you know with that last week definitely was like put the baby.

Q : Which are your currents projects ?

Jessica Sula : while my current projects,  I'm just chilling totally. 

Anthony DiBlasi : I think this was the long production for me. the movie was coming out so close that I haven't time to think about much besides writing you know what I'm writing some stuff with my wife Natalie that we're taking up we just finished the movie like yesterday technically. I mean technically.

Welcome Villain Films is a fully integrated genre studio with an innovative business model and flexible approach to development, production, marketing, and strategic distribution. A destination for filmmakers with unique voices who seek a creative studio partner that embraces their visions and has the ability to deliver them to genre-hungry audiences in exciting new ways, Welcome Villain Films’ mission is to empower creators of all levels, bridging the gap between studio and artist to consistently deliver edgy and exciting films in the horror and genre space. The studio has completed production on its first original film, Malum, an expanded reimagining of cult hit Last shift (2014), announced another original production with the creators of the Houses october built franchise, and will release survival horror-thriller Hunt her, kill her in theaters on March 3. For more information, visit www.WelcomeVillain.com

Synopsis: 
Malum is a bold and expanded reimagining of the 2014 horror cult classic, LAST SHIFT. On a search to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding her father’s death, a newly appointed police officer, Jessica Loren (Jessica Sula) is assigned to the last shift in a decommissioned police station where a notoriously vicious cult saw their demise years prior. The lone officer at the station, she soon finds herself barraged by terrifying paranormal events, and in the process, is taken on a journey during which she learns the shocking truth behind her family’s entanglement with a demented cult leader. Malum takes the premise of the 2014 festival hit and flips it on its head, thrusting viewers into an unrelenting, adrenaline-fueled, bloody cult nightmare.

Malum
Directed by Anthony DiBlasi             
Produced by Scott Poiley, Dan Clifton
Written by Anthony DiBlasi, Scott Poiley
Executive Producers: Mary Poiley, Luke LaBeau, Eric Kleifield, Bonner Bellew, Justin Brown
Starring Jessica Sula, Candice Coke, Chaney Morrow, Clarke Wolfe, Morgan Lennon, Valerie Loo, Monroe Cline, Eric Olson, Sam Brooks, Kevin Wayne, Danielle Coyne, Natalie Victoria, Christopher Matthew Spencer and Britt George
Cinematography : Sean McDaniel
Distributed by Welcome Villain Films (United states)
Release date : March 31 2023 (United States)
Running time : 92 minutes

We would like to thanks Brad Johnson for this interview and Anthony DiBlasi and Jessica Sula for answering to our questions