Written by: Ryan Dailey
Director James Wan has dropped the proverbial ball with his non-Conjuring universe offering, Malignant. The film moves along slowly, which is typically a great story-telling device…IF there is a story being told during that time. It seems as though this film is full of just “dead space” where nothing really happens all the way up until the “shocking” twist in the third act. Note the quotation marks. Horror fans really wanted to like the movie, most reviews are grasping at straws, trying to polish a turd.
As a fan, I will give credit where it is due. The cinematography is on point. The audience will be treated to interesting angles and tracking shots and transitions. The acting is okay, given the material they were working with.
The film stars Annabelle Wallis in the lead role of Madison. Madison is haunted by grisly visions of murder being committed by a black shadow like, malicious figure with no regard for human life. Sounds hard to screw this up, right, fellow horrorhounds?
Wan does.
Big time.
Okay. let me clear the air. If one read a synopsis of the film and knew what the title means, the plot is clear from the first frame. The only thing that caught me off guard was, was when Madison took out a police station full of armed police with kung fu. Take a minute and re-read that. Kung Fu! The reasoning is the major twist within the movie, the sweet spiral and curve ball Wan likes to add to his masterpieces. This little “character trait” only becomes more confusing when Madison lifts a hospital bed off of her adoptive sister. The sister says she cannot move it, as it is too heavy. Madison responds with ‘“It was always my body,’” implying that The Matrix act she just did, the parkour escape down the side of a building and single handedly throwing the hospital bed on her sister was always in her capabilities?
Malignant is not terrible, but only if you watch in the context that this is what a Troma movie with a 40 million dollar budget would look like. So if you like Basket Case and Jackie Chan and want those things thrown into a 1990’s era Cinemax sci fi writer’s room, by all means, enjoy this movie. Just do me one favor and DO NOT compare it to Giallo films from the greats. I have already died on that particular social media hill
