Malignant (2021) Review

Tagline: A new vision of terror.

Malignant (2021) Review

 

Based on the trailer, I didn’t really know what to expect from Malignant, but I certainly didn’t expect what I saw. This is going to be the hardest review I’ve done in a while, because I really don’t want to spoil too much of what happens, but also articulating my thoughts and reaction to something like this is like trying to explain TikTok to your 95 year-old aunt with dementia.

Madison (Annabelle Wallis, from the 2017 remake of The Mummy) is pregnant for the third or fourth time (but still without a kid), and her husband gets violent with her one day, knocking her back so hard against the wall her head bleeds. Some other weird and horrible stuff transpires, and she has yet another miscarriage, but afterward she’s haunted by this creepy, murderous trench coat-wearing…thing…by the name of Gabriel, and Madison seems to share a psychic connection with him. Who is really to blame, though, for all the murders of these people involved in Madison’s life? We follow along with the police investigation subplot done a million times over (it hits all the marks you’d expect) and Madison’s sister’s probing of her past, which reveals some dark secrets.

In the beginning of the movie (and the trailer) it seems like it’s a supernatural threat, and it sort of is, but sort of isn’t. Maybe it was? In the first half I found myself asking “what?” over and over, but it wasn’t always in reference to the mystery of the story (mostly prompted by weird moments or questionable dialogue or outrageous occurrences). About 20 minutes in, I thought I knew exactly what was going to be revealed. It seemed obvious, and I’m not that smart, I’ve just seen enough horror movies like this that it felt all too predictable. But then the big reveal comes at the end of the second act, and it is wild—even wilder than what I had thought was going on.  

Tonally, Malignant is all over the place. I loved the music, but it sounded like it belonged in a different movie half the time. Tracks range from sounding like classic cliché haunted house music to alt-rock to almost a synth wave techno beat, and the music is often used at inappropriate times. The plot is purposefully confusing to begin with, and without spoiling it, the truth behind this strange connection between Madison and Gabrielle is so crazy and absurd that it becomes entertaining in a whole new way toward the end.

Director James Wan first broke into Hollywood with horror films, with his biggest successes being the original entries in the Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring franchises (for the record, Malignant is nothing like any of those), but he’s since gone on to bigger projects like the seventh Fast and Furious movie and Aquaman. At times, Malignant feels like it’s trying to be more of an action movie than a horror movie, and it doesn’t really gel with the disturbing concepts. Wan is extremely good at framing his shots, and visually speaking, it has a nice variety and many great shots. When it comes to the “scary stuff” though, he used every trick in the book, and I’m not exaggerating.

Cliché horror elements include: creaking doors, fuzzy TV screens, old VHS footage, lights flickering, sudden loud noises, a killer with a signature weapon and outfit, characters going into dark places alone, dark silhouettes appearing behind someone and disappearing, an old creepy house, an old dark abandoned asylum on the very edge of a dangerously high cliff, pseudoscience, gross surgeries, and way too many more. I could literally go on for several more sentences. Here’s a fun game to play while you watch: make a bingo card with every horror movie cliché you can think of and see how long it takes to win. I bet the card will be full before the halfway mark.

Even with all these clichés we’ve seen a million times before, which made the first two acts feel pretty tiring after a while, it’s that insane twist/reveal that stands out and changes the trajectory of the story. It’s like one of those insane concepts from a sleazy, exploitative 70’s horror shocker, and conceptually, I loved it, but the execution was very flawed. Instead of being horrified or disgusted I was often baffled and laughing, but maybe that was the point.  

I don’t really know what kind of viewer James Wan had in mind for Malignant. Gore hounds will be unsatisfied, anyone wanting a purely supernatural scare will be disappointed, it isn’t the best example of body horror, it’s not campy enough for lots of laughs, and it isn’t intelligent enough to be taken seriously. As for my own initial take on it, I didn’t really know how to feel. I didn’t hate it on the whole, but I didn’t really like a lot of it either. The crazy twist re-contextualizes everything and explains a lot of the preceding mystery (but not everything), but is also so bizarre and ridiculous it makes all the other subpar aspects seem worse by comparison. All in all, I say it’s an entertaining modern piece of schlock, and perhaps the craziest horror movie of 2021. It didn’t surprise me or confuse me quite as much as M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, but the very existence of Malignant surprises me more.