All hail James Wan. The man who may have single handedly brought modern horror to the grisly, overly franchised state it currently rots in will forever be remembered as a singular vision, whether you like it or not. That does mean that, when he gets to do something original, he and his team go absolutely balls to the wall with energy and ambition. Nowhere is there a better example of that than “Malignant.”
Annabelle Wallis (“Peaky Blinders,” “Annabelle”) plays Maddie, dealing with some terrifying visions after suffering a miscarriage and the death of her abusive husband. Eventually the police and Maddie’s sister get more involved and to describe any further than that would be to rob the film of its biggest and juiciest asset.
Wan, who cut his teeth directing the first “Saw” and became a household name with projects like “Insidious” and “The Conjuring”, clearly loves the art of suspense. Yet, “Malignant” displays it differently than in his past films. It's only tangentially a horror movie, skewing closer to a mystery thriller by the end, but Wan lets the suspense hang thick. Its focus isn’t to scare, rather to intrigue. The film’s biggest asset isn’t horror or actors, it's the many twists taken throughout its 110-minute-runtime.
“Well,” you might be thinking to yourself, “a well-constructed twist is great and all, but that doesn’t automatically make for a good story.” And you’d be correct. What Wan has done is brought together a cast and creative team so completely committed to the bonkers nature of what he’s constructed that you’d be hard pressed to notice. Every actor is insanely committed to delivering the batshit dialogue and plot moments with the sincerity of a Shakespeare film.
Maddie Hasson (“We Summon the Darkness,” “Impulse”) plays the insane events of the film with a remarkably straight face as Maddie’s sister Sydney. George Young (“Containment”) is an oddly calm police detective trying to investigate these murders and Michole Briana White (“Spell,” “Songbird”) is his partner, both so stereotypically detective-y that the “Law & Order” tones threaten to ring out every time the entire a scene.
Wan is clearly playing with all the toys Warner Bros has gifted him with over the years. After all, when you’re responsible for one of the most successful horror franchises in years, studios tend to let you spend $40 million creating elaborate house sets, underground Seattle ruins, and the greatest open concept police station ever seen.
Whether or not “Malignant” is any good is basically irrelevant. This is a filmmaker not so much crafting a film as playing with his favorite toys, and gleefully inviting writers Akela Cooper (“Luke Cage,” “Hell Fest”) and Ingrid Bisu (“Toni Erdmann,” “Cafeaua de dimineata”) to join in. Wan is a skilled professional in the horror genre, and it allows him to turn out some truly bonkers events and have us all lap it up eagerly. The dialogue may be stupid, and it might directly contradict itself, but the seriousness with which it carries every moment never wavers.
“Malignant” is the kind of movie that, as soon as credits roll, you want to tell your friends to see just so you can talk about how utterly insane it was. That may not directly speak to its quality, but it speaks to how memorable everything is. You can’t help but admire the craftsmanship on display, such perfection churning out such batshit ideas. It’s the filmmaking equivalent of watching a Michelin star chef being asked to drizzle his Caviar with chocolate sauce and coconut shavings. And he does, and its delicious. 3.5/5
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