Malignant: A Different Take on Horror
Initially going in to this film, I honestly had no idea what to expect, I was just going off of the trailers. I thought the movie would be a lot scarier than it actually was. There were some scary scenes but it was more action oriented. The movie is 1 hour and 51 minutes long.
Main Character Madison with the killer lurking behind her
Photo By: Polygon.com
Following 3 prior miscarriages, Madison falls pregnant to her abusive husband Derek. An altercation between the two lead Derek to aggressively slam her head against the wall. Madison begins having nightmares of gruesome murders, which she later discover to be real. She has to rediscover the lost memories of her childhood to find the reason behind the nightmares.
Director James Wan, known for directing the Conjuring, Insidious, Saw, and Annabelle, also directed Malignant. Annabelle Wallis did a fantastic job portraying Madison, capturing emotional outbreaks and the terrifying idea that she was not in control of her mind. Kekoa Shaw a detective played by George Young, showed his lack of fully thinking this through as shown when he chased after the killer through unknown area of an abandoned city underneath the Seattle city. He soon loses the killer and is then left to find his way out. Kekoa repeatedly shows this trait and many others throughout the film.
Before watching the film I watched a couple trailers. These trailers captured the suspensful parts while successfully laying out the plot. Although the trailers were good, I think that they were over exaggerating the scare factor of the movie. I have seen other horror movies led by James Wan prior to seeing Malignant, and I enjoyed those films more than Wan’s latest.
Detective Kekoa Shaw
Photo By: Buzzfeed
The cast and costumes were carefully selected and made for a much better experience. The killers costume was well thought out and planned. Personally I think that this is one of James Wan's weakest horror-thriller movies that he has directed so far. The costume given to the killer was well designed and without knowing who or what he was you already had an idea of what he was like.
The camera movements and shots were very good at capturing the important scenes and the fast paced ones. During fast scenes the camera was moving rapidly from shot to shot and during more slow and important scenes there were a few fixed camera angles.
According to Rhys Bowen Jones, an author at Jumpcut Online, said that Wan returns to his roots and produces a "shockingly, violent, psychological horror-thriller". He also states that,“What Malignant may lack in scares - it is worth emphasizing the thriller element of this is far more prevalent than its horror - it makes up for in style the unerring confidence, insanity".
Overall I was not a huge fan of the film, as I found it to be too cliché as shown when Madison ran past unlocked front doors and Gabriel superhumanly dodging the several dozen shots fired at him. In my opinion, it was the most un-scary horror movie I've seen so far, although there were some suspenseful parts, they were minimal and the feeling it gave you was short-lived. With a 76% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, most critics did enjoy the movie.