MALIGNANT

If you’re in the mood for a bat-shit crazy movie that is more unintentional comedy than scarefest, Malignant gives you what you’re craving … and then some.

In James Wan's new horror flick Malignant the director leaves behind the stylish seventies scares of his Conjuring films and replaces it with something much more akin to the giallo genre, to at times baffling effect.

After an intriguing if overtly shlocky prologue the film introduces the viewer to the lead character, a woman trapped in an abusive marriage, played with over-the-top intensity by Annabelle Wallis. Not much later her boyfriend is brutally killed by a creepy presence and Wallis is having visions of other, ever more bloody murders, setting in motion a series of events that leads to a shocking last-act revelation that needs to be seen to be believed.

With Wan using every horror cliché in the book, the cast hamming it up big time and a soundtrack that is laughably grand guignol Malignant more often resembles a nuance-free parody than an actual scary movie, which at least makes it somewhat entertaining. So if you like your movies batshit crazy, Malignant might be an ideal so-bad-it's-good film for you.

release: 2021

director: James Wan

starring: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White