Hollywood’s under the radar moneymaker has been James Wan, now 35th on the all time list cashing in over $1.1 billion on films he’s directed. Wan’s quality level is consistently solid too: he’s got a decent superhero movie under his belt, as well as arguably the best Fast & Furious film. But Wan’s prolific imagination is best served in the horror genre: 3 Insidous Films, more than 7 Conjurings, and even more Saws, the dude scares us to death with more and more deranged creations in that twisted mind of his. I don’t know if Malignant will spawn another franchise like those other horror entries. But it’s on Wan’s short list of the most insane, fun horror concepts anyone has conceived in a while. Even M. Night Shyamalan would bow to Wan’s greatness with this one.
It’s been rough sledding for Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis). Trapped in a loveless, abusive relationship, all she wants to do is bring a child into this world to raise. Despite her sister Sydney’s (Maddie Hasson) love, poor Madison suffers setback after setback. Things get even worse for her one night, when a shadowy figure appears in her house, driving her loved ones away while connecting with Madison on some psychic level, showing her murders being investigated by Seattle police officers (Michole Briana White and George Young).
What makes Wan a perfect horror director is he finds the right tone for each of his films: the Saw films are darkly funny, the Conjuring movies ooze atmosphere, and the Insidious films vacillate between the two. For Malignant, Wan settles on levels. On the surface, he plays the movie pretty straight, with the actors doing their best to give the story gravitas, particularly the horror pro Annabelle Wallis. But underneath, Wan slowly builds in layers of twisted amusement and insanity. The deaths are particularly gruesome to the point where that demented part of your brain might start to laugh in that uncomfortably droll way. Then a character will drop a joke out of nowhere; then what seems like a nighttime scare morphs into something so radically different you feel disoriented in an exciting way. Malignant might be scary in brief moments, but in the way the Conjuring movies mess with the beats of when the scares come, Malignant messes with the beats of where a story might be going, usually turning into something more unhinged and more wackadoodle in a 70% evil, 30% funny way.
That slow building Wan does for the first 90 minutes builds to….it. That final 30 minutes. There’s so much horror fan glee and delight going on I could barely contain myself. Inside of that final 30 minutes is a a jaw dropper of a horror twist I definitely didn’t see coming. But after that…we get IT….an all timer of a horror twist, up there with Orphan (spoiler for a decade old film) on the sheer “HOLY SH*T” audacity scale. The execution of it is so ridiculously sinister and evil, you almost want to stand up an applaud Wan for his sadistic genius. But like all the greats, Wan’s not done. He takes that big twist, and shows us the consequences. The horrifying, macabre, stomach churning, gory consequences. You’ll want to clap, cry, cover your face, and stare a hole through your TV all at the same time, as Wan, the puppet master, takes us down his rabid rabbit hole.
Malignant is not for the squeamish. But it’s also WAY smarter than those dumb torture porn gore fests. I’ll admit to scoffing off this movie with its stupid trailer you’ll see below. However, that’s why James Wan gets those big bucks: he’s luring horror fans in for one type of movie but leaving them with something much, much…darker.