One half of James Wan’s “Malignant” is a bonkers, bizarre, campy, violent remake of “Basket Case.” It is so painfully self-aware, and it has a good time with it by often fucking with the audience. The second half seems to be a look at how ridiculous James Wan can get before the movie rushes to the merciful end. While I can forgive director Wan for “borrowing” from Frank Henenlotter for the sake of his bonkers horror film, I pretty much give up once the film devolves in to myriad plot holes and inexplicable martial arts sequences.
Twenty-seven years after the brutal Simion Research Hospital incident, abused Madison wakes up in a hospital in present-day Seattle. But with numbing visions of murder getting in the way of a normal life, Madison’s obscure past emerges, baffling both herself and the local detectives who suspect her of murder. Are these explicitly violent killings figments of Madison’s troubled imagination? Either way, someone, or better yet, something, links the past to the present forcing Madison to face her childhood and uncover some demons she wish would have stayed buried.
James Wan has built enough good faith in him exponentially over the years what with his engineering of “The Conjuring” Universe and the “Insidious” series. But with “Malignant” he almost seems to use the storytelling format as a means of fucking with his audience. For years, even at his best audiences always seem to be looking to get a step ahead of him, and to the detriment of the film’s quality, he works overtime to subvert our expectations. Whenever Wan looks like he’s going to zig, he zags, and often times its right in to a wall. I can dig the fact that he’s in to making a bizarre horror movie that teases the audience, but Wan almost seems to not give much of crap by the time the second half rolls around.
The fantastic effects, and often dazzling direction is undermined by the nigh endless plot holes. So is Gabriel the villain or is Madison? Is Gabriel an actual confirmed Demon, or a just twisted vindictive parasitic twin? Why does Gabriel leave his nemesis Sydney, Madison’s sister, for last? How/Why can Gabriel control Electronics? How/Why does Gabriel Have Powers? How/Why can Gabriel move things with his mind? How/Why does Gabriel know Martial Arts? How did no one hear Madison’s mother in the attic? What was the end game for Madison and Gabriel’s mother? So– what happens to Madison after the movie?
Does she just go home after slaughtering a whole station filled with police and its prisoners? Also can Madison finally have children now that she’s “defeated” Gabriel? Wan also seems to develop sub-plots and side-plots and does absolutely nothing with them. He can also never seem to decide on an actual central protagonist for the film, as he bounces back and forth even focusing on the film’s horrifying villain. That’s another caveat, as the idea of the film’s boogeyman named “Gabriel” is absolutely creepy and menacing, and yet Wan is happy with turning him in to a jump kicking, high flying, parkour wielding acrobat most of the time. He’s a far cry from the twist Crooked Man that we saw in “The Conjuring 2.” No matter how intentionally meta, and or bonkers narrative are, “Malignant” is huge misfire for James Wan I just can’t imagine ever wanting to see again.