Malignant is James Wan’s return to the horror genre after making Aquaman. Previously, Wan made movies like Saw and Dead Silence with his co-writer and star Leigh Whannell, who has since moved on to direct the likes of Upgrade and The Invisible Man. Malignant just might be proof that Whannell was the brains of the outfit because this one is a fucking mess.
That said, I’m not sure Whannell could’ve concocted such a humdinger of an ending. Whatever its faults are early on, the last twenty minutes or so of Malignant offer up some nutty goodness. It kind of comes as a day late and a dollar short, but if and when they make Malignant 2, I’ll be first in line.
Annabelle Wallis stars as a grieving woman who just lost her baby. As she tries to move forward, we learn that the doctors who cared for her as a kid are being brutally murdered. Could it be her childhood imaginary friend seeking revenge? Or could it be something even grosser?
Malignant has a bunch of cool ideas, but no singular vision to tie everything together. It cribs bits from The Dark Half, Poltergeist 2, Basket Case and a few others. Overall, it just feels like an overlong, overcomplicated mishmash. None of it is particularly scary either. Wan does his best to replicate the look and feel of a Dario Argento movie during the scenes where Wallis and the killer are psychically linked (Wallis is practically in Daria Nicolodi cosplay the whole movie), although he is only successful about half the time. Ultimately, the excessive CGI that morphs the two settings into one during these sequences are cheesy, and hamper what little atmosphere Wan had managed to build up.
Also, what’s the deal with horror flicks being stretched out to absurd lengths nowadays? The Empty Man was 137 minutes. In the Earth was 106. This is a whopping 111. Can’t filmmakers just give us a 90-minute movie anymore? Or would that mean it wouldn’t be “elevated” because it doesn’t have a bloated running time?
Seriously, the first ninety minutes or so of Malignant are a slog. It really could’ve been trimmed down, and no one would’ve noticed or cared. However, that last act is a work of demented genius. I just wish there was more of that kooky glee present elsewhere in the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment