Malignant (2021) Review

After seeing the amazing but simple poster for James Wan’s Malignant I was dying to find out what the film was all about, and yesterday I finally got around to experiencing the film. Malignant is certainly an interesting movie; while I didn’t love the movie’s execution, its concepts and visuals were more than enough to keep me invested in the film throughout its 1 hour and 51-minute runtime. Whatever impression the trailers and teasers have given you, throw them out the window. Malignant’s marketing campaign has done a fantastic job of keeping the film’s true nature and subject matter under wraps, and for both better and for worse, Malignant is not the movie I expected it to be.

To give a brief, sans-spoilers synopsis of the film for the uninitiated, the film follows Madison (Anabelle Wallis) who falls victim to a terrible, supernatural tragedy. While recovering, Madison is plagued by visions of horrors that lead her to not only question her own mind but to question her own past.

The true, hidden concept of Malignant is actually very interesting, albeit predictable, and the twists and turns put terrifying and interesting ideas on the screen that seem to be in conversation with classics such as Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. While the film is ripe with refreshing concepts and awesome visuals (always a staple of modern horror guru Wan) the film falters a bit in the execution of these original ideas. While Malignant never quite feels like it knows what tone it wants to have, I do pride the film for swinging for the fences. Wan swings the viewer between familial melodrama to The Matrix­-style fight scenes to sequences of horror not dissimilar to those in Wan’s The Conjuring films. This movie doesn’t always land its attempts at comedy or over-the-top action, but there truly is a little something for every type of horror fan in this film. Also, Malignant and The Nutty Professor (1996) share the same plot—do with that information what you will.

Malignant suffers from painfully on-the-nose dialogue from the very moment the film begins and all the way to its credits. Characters deliver lines that are cliches of cliches, and other times obvious and self-explanatory story beats are given in glaring information dumps. The film’s uninspired dialogue is unbecoming of the many fascinating ideas that the movie brings to the screen, ultimately holding the movie back from its full potential.

Many of the performances don’t do the dialogue any favors, either. While Wallis’s Madison is a sympathetic figure, the supporting cast of characters doesn't inspire any strong feelings from me. Madison’s sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson), George Young’s hotshot detective Kekoa Shaw, his partner Regina Moss played by Michole Briana White (doing her best impression of Wanda Sykes)—none of them do anything for me to either like them or hate them. I’d rather vehemently dislike a character in a horror movie than feel nothing because then I have some emotional investment in whether they live or die. Outside of Wallis, none of the other performers in the movie do a particularly memorable job.

While the supporting cast is just fine, many of the film’s side characters feel more like caricatures than real people. A scene within a holding cell towards the film’s climax is filled with characters who are dress and act like little more than one-note stereotypes. A black woman is dressed like she just came out of a nightclub from a 70’s blacksploitation film and an old white woman looks like she’s in discount Sons of Anarchy cosplay.

In most other films, the overacting from the victims in the film’s goriest scenes would ruin the moment, but the impressiveness of Malignant’s stunts. Even when actors are giving Syfy primetime-quality performances, the deaths in the film are purely Hollywood-quality. When the film isn’t employing rubbery-looking CGI, the stunt work performed in its action scenes is truly impressive. Without giving too much away about the film’s villain, the choreographers did such a great way of making the villain move in a way that felt naturally unnatural—the mode of transportation the villain uses is freaky and uncomfortable to watch, but the villain executes the movement in a way that makes it look natural. There are some prosthetics and animatronics used in the film that are quite great and I wish more physical props had been used in favor of CGI in some other moments in the film.

Malignant’s score is a bit of a confusing mess. While Joseph Bishara’s score itself is epic, full of gothic and intense chords and notes reminiscent of a lot of classic horror themes (namely Halloween), the music never really feels like it is used in the appropriate moments. The well-composed music often feels like overkill over the moment on screen, leading to interesting moments feeling rather melodramatic. The film’s music is too loud and too busy, and sometimes it even feels like the tone of the score is in direct contradiction to the emotion of the scene. There are moments in which Shaw and Moss, are inspecting a body but the music accompanying the harrowing scene would seem more appropriate in a 1970’s porn film. The music is well-made but seldom feels at home within the film.

Overall, while Malignant is not a great movie, I think it is worth a watch. The film is currently free to watch on HBO Max and it is more than fun enough to warrant a watch. Malignant is not James Wan’s best horror movie, but it is an entertaining film that brings many fascinating ideas and concepts to the table, but the film’s dialogue, acting, and score often keep the film’s fresh narrative and exciting action from ever really transcending to greatness. If you can watch this movie with someone else or a group of friends, I would certainly recommend it. I rate Malignant a 6/10. Wan leaves the film open to a sequel, a proposition that I wouldn’t mind which is more than I can say for many horror films.