Mauler (2025) Review
Desperate for cash, five friends sign up for a $25K dark web contest inside a haunted murder house. But when they face off against a 7-foot-tall religious maniac with a sledgehammer, it’s no longer about the money—it’s a fight for survival.
For a film with such a short runtime MAULER feels like it goes on for hours. Tonally it is all over the place, dragging when it should be picking up the pace, and spending too long on things that add little value – for example even the opening credits take an age. Far too long is spent setting things up and when it does finally get going it does not seem to know where to go next.
The youngsters are a constant annoyance, whining when things are going OK and still whiney when things start to take a turn for the worse. I had no empathy/sympathy for any of them and could not wait for them to meet their maker at the hands of the ‘mauler.’ It never quite becomes the low-budget slasher it wants to be, in fact I was not sure it knows what it wants to be.
ON DIGITAL AND ON DEMAND MAY 20