Malevolent – Part 34: “The Butcher”
For Your Consideration
Synopsis
As written, edited, produced, and performed by Canadian creator Harlan Guthrie, the Lovecraftian dread of “Malevolent” begins in 1930s Arkham, Massachusetts. Arthur Lester, having emigrated from England to America, is a private investigator alone at his office – blind and terrified. He can’t remember where or who he is, nor trust the voice in his head that insisting it’s a friend, but his research into a local cult has caught too much attention to hide. What follows is Arthur’s frantic bid to survive the cosmic horrors around him, using only the ominous voice in his head to lay his course.
Part 34, “The Butcher,” marks the midpoint of Malevolent’s fourth season, and three-year anniversary. Its opening mirrors the show’s, with a man alone at his work, but in the single, sharpest departure from Malevolent’s set format, it isn’t Arthur’s point-of-view. Instead, the episode follows its titular Butcher. He arrives at the home of Arthur’s father-in-law, politely knocks to ask for Arthur, and when the door fails to open, blasts it to splinters with a shotgun. Though it’s their second encounter, the violent shift in the story’s perspective throws Arthur back to where he first began: blind, terrified, unable to hide, and forced to survive an assassin using only the voice in his head.