Movie Review: Malignant

Malignant

This movie is utterly chaotic and fueled by a wildly frenetic energy aided by bizarre quick cuts and a wacky soundtrack score. I’m hardly sure I know how to digest what I just watched, and as a result I’m sure this review will read just as confused and chaotic as the flick I just consumed. Honestly, I can’t imagine being in the writers’ room for this one, or in any of the casting screen tests. I’m not sure how you’d play out the killer twist here in a test reading and keep your composure. Not to mention those absolutely wild kill/fight scenes.

This is not necessarily “new” in terms of its good versus evil and mental illness/psychic connection central plot, but I dare say it’s ridiculously inventive in its execution. Truly. You’ll never see anything like it.

The story follows Madison, as she begins having visions of crime scenes after experiencing a head injury due to domestic abuse. This wacky flick takes its story on a bizarre spiraling plot and swaps back and forth between slow exposition and lighting paced action so fast you’re going to wind up with whiplash, but you’ll be so engrossed and baffled by its frantic changes that you’ll hardly notice the nearly 2hr runtime. The characters could probably use some more development, but it’s hardly a glaring flaw. Honestly, it’s so fast paced you probably won’t even miss their semi underbaked qualities. The jump scares are clever enough, and two of them received big laughs from me; well played ya got me good.

Aside from the truly chaotic story pacing, everything syncs well aesthetically. Using warm and cool color shifts is a smart choice, and helps give context to visions versus reality, good versus evil. The switch back and forth between the killer Gabriel’s viewpoint and Madison’s visions is expertly done and very creative. These scenes are so disorienting it’s hard to tell what’s up or down (or should I perhaps say what’s forward or backwards?!) and it throws the viewer into a tailspin. The transitions are seamless and these hallucinatory states really do read as a waking dream for the audience just as they do for Madison.

I spent most of my time watching this utterly aghast and seriously confounded, and that was so bizarrely enjoyable of an experience that I don’t even mind how little sense it all makes when you zoom out. It’s gross. It’s visceral. It’s weird. And I’ll say it once again: Chaotic to the core. I’m not remotely sure how to describe all of the things I enjoyed or how to quantify the emotional experience that is “Malignant” hahaha! But I would recommend it with two thumbs up and five stars if you need a truly bonkers, totally wild, spooky thrill ride to shake things up a bit.

I hope James Wan is having a very nice week, because mine is better having seen this and I want him to have nice things, too. Hahaha!

TW: Loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, loss of a child, spousal abuse, domestic violence, verbal abuse, abuse and injury to pregnant woman, graphic gruesome murders, knife violence, blood, mental illness, ableism, disturbing imagery, extremely graphic body horror, gun violence, police violence, police activity, suicidal ideation, hospitals, heart attack, adoption and foster care, gaslighting, hallucinations, Loud auditory effects and flashing visual effects, head injuries, mental institution, child endangerment, child experiment etc

Review by Ellen Avigliano

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