Malignant: Tasteless, dark, sadistic and a whole lot of fun
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2021 (1813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
You’re reading a review of the movie Malignant a few days after its Friday release because, like so many horror movies before it, Malignant apparently did not screen in advance for critics.
For decades now, studios have often treated horror fare as material best left unseen until opening day, because most movie critics tend to be prejudiced against it. (There is some justification for this.)
But this time, the joke was on the studio — Warner Bros. to be specific.
Critics ended up liking the film quite a bit. On Monday morning, the film’s score on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes score was 75 per cent favourable. Audiences, curiously, were less impressed, with an audience score of just 50 per cent, so advance screenings would have only enhanced the movie’s box office prospects.
The funny part is that the film’s director, James Wan, was one of the few filmmakers deemed worthy enough to have risen above the no-preview policy. Wan started out co-creating the somewhat sleazy Saw series before branching out into the more respectable realms of studio horror with the Conjuring franchise — ghost stories embellished by big-money visual effects.
The success of these films has seen Wan take on high-profile non-horror franchise entries including Aquaman and Furious 7.
On the face of it, Malignant looks like Wan in retrograde, flirting with the sadism and overall outlandishness of the Saw movies.
It starts with Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis of Wan’s Annabelle movies) living a domestic nightmare as she returns home from her job to a wastrel husband (Jake Abel) who slams the pregnant Madison against the wall in what we assume is a typical act of abuse. That’s when things go topsy-turvey for Madison as she becomes paralyzed and is forced to bear witness to a home invasion by a spectral figure who leaves hubby dead and Madison in a state of trauma.
But more attacks ensue, with victims including a doctor (Jacqueline McKenzie) specializing in deformed children. An investigating police officer (George Young) is baffled, but Madison’s sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson, who starred as one of a trio of psychos in the Manitoba-lensed satanic-panic thriller We Summon the Darkness) rises to the occasion to launch her own investigation into the links between Madison and the doctor.
Suffice to say the solution to the mystery is a bit of a doozie.
It’s also great fun. Not to give anything away, but Wan’s sources of inspiration range from late-’80s-era Stephen King to a certain Frank Henenlotter cult classic. One scene, which sees Sydney visit an abandoned cliffside sanatorium, would seem to be a delightful shout-out to The House on Haunted Hill remake, of all things.
Eschewing the tastefulness of his most recent horror movies, Wan’s Malignant is an entertaining entry, a breath of delightfully dank air. The director found a way to score some shocks without necessarily resorting to Saw’s lurid kills or Conjuring’s million-dollar jump scares. Indeed, the movie may be the purest synthesis of all of Wan’s talents, the elaborate comic-book action of Aquaman very much included.
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @FreepKing
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MOVIE REVIEW
Malignant
Starring Annabelle Wallis and Maddie Hasson
● Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne
● 14A
● 111 minutes
★★★1/2 out of five
Other voices
There’s no way to watch this deranged followup and not conclude that Wan’s back where he belongs.
— A.A. Dowd, AV Club
Wan’s final twist is so maniacal and so (and this is a compliment) deeply and thoroughly stupid that it more than makes up for the minor missteps along the way.
— Alison Shoemaker, Fox 10 Phoenix
If you must see Malignant, a theatre might honestly be the best bet. That way at least you can laugh along in utter shock with your fellow theater-goers.
— Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
It’s hard to say whether a film this bonkers “works” or not, but it’s impossible not to admire both the craft and the extravagant bad taste behind its go-for-broke energy.
— Andrew Barker, Variety
Can a movie that’s deficient in just about every way be redeemed by an original twist? In the case of “Malignant,” the answer is … sort of.
— Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
Wan takes big swings, and the humor and bloodletting come in equal measure. It’s silly, it’s outrageous, and it’s a blast — an imperfect but wildly entertaining throwback to a bygone era of horror.
— Meagan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting
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Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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