Malignant isn't just a horror movie. It's also what happens when somebody makes multiple movies that gross over $1 billion worldwide. James Wan isn't just the filmmaker behind Saw and The Conjuring now, he's got enough clout to make whatever he wants. That includes an original scary feature full of blood, violence, heightened visual choices, and all sorts of other stuff that are bound to make studio executives who like reboots quiver. The result, like so many projects willed into existence by post-blockbuster success, is messy, but it's also so interesting and consistently entertaining that I was (mostly) won over.
Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis) is the lead of Malignant, a woman who has suffered multiple miscarriages, just the most recent tragedy to befall her tormented life. When her physically abusive boyfriend is murdered by a shadowy figure, Mitchell's world gets flipped on its head. This is even more true once Mitchell finds herself watching this figure, named Gabriel, commit a series of grisly murders. How could this be happening? It's just one of many strange occurrences in Mitchell's life, which include revelations about her past that could help pinpoint who this Gabriel is and what he wants.
Malignant makes use of some mildly trippy imagery to convey whenever Mitchell is being transported to watch vicious murders occur. The best of these transitions see's Mithcell's home gradually begin to transform into the domicile of a corpse-to-be. Meanwhile, even scenes set outside of nighttime murders make use of bolder visual flourishes that suggest the over-the-top nature of this story. Every manhole in this version of Seattle billows smoke at night, every neon sign or colored lightbulb drenches nearby rooms in bright shades of red. Mithcell's sister, Sydney (Maddie Hasson), can't just visit an old hospital, she has to visit a shambling hospital that looks like somewhere Scooby-Doo and friends would search for clues in.
Whereas Wan's Conjuring movies juxtaposed stylized demons with grounded surroundings, the world of Malignant is already heightened even before Gabriel starts stabbing people with his golden knife. In fact, the biggest problems in Malignant are whenever it tries too hard to add logic or a cohesive lore to its story. Instead of leaning into the dreamlike logic of certain sequences, screenwriter Akela Cooper tends to hammer home the reasoning behind why certain events are happening. Similarly, characters have a bad habit of just flatly delivering exposition or character motivations, as if Cooper and Wan are petrified of audiences getting turned off by a movie that just lets the inexplicable be inexplicable.
This flawed approach to the dialogue makes early intimate scenes hard to take seriously, especially since Cooper keeps swinging wildly back-and-forth from vulnerable discussions about miscarriages to extended horror set pieces straight out of Lights Out. The tonal problems also extend to awkward pieces of comedy from Sydney and a thirsty crime scene investigator, both of which stick out like a sore thumb. Luckily, Malignant gets more and more bonkers as it goes along. Cooper does manage to deliver the kind of delightful twists that make up the best campfire stories and Wan is accompanying those enjoyably madcap turns with his pronounced camerawork. All of that devotion to the absurd culminates in a third act that's just deliriously off-the-rails. Whatever you think you know about Malignant won't prepare you for how unabashedly freaky, gory, and nasty it gets.
All of it's done with an assured sense of confidence and welcome eschewing of anything approaching reality. Wan isn't here to emulate everyday life nor is he just following in the footsteps of older horror movies. Instead, he's making something that's just wildly entertaining to watch, with him and Cooper showing a real talent for making something that feels vivid and alive. Even the main baddie, Gabriel, ends up feeling like a genuinely creative horror villain, even if the reliance on the sound of his bones popping and crunching as he moves feels too close to The Crooked Man from Wan's own The Conjuring 2.
Malignant as an overall movie is erratic in quality and its character-driven qualities never get off the ground like they should. Like many horror movies, you'll be left trying to remember what kind of heftier ideas from the first act (in this case, trauma related to miscarriages and Mitchell's sense of loneliness) were even trying to be explored once the blood starts flowing. But the parts of Malignant, especially in its final half-hour, that are so delightfully off-the-wall make that flaw manageable. In his two decades of experience direction feaure-length movies, Wan has grown confident enough to handle something this bizarre and it's exciting to watch unfold. In other words, Malignant is no The Book of Henry in the pantheon of post-blockbuster passion projects!
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