Malignant is an homage to giallo spaghetti slashers that hits the right spot
For horror fans, Malignant might remind you of those classic Giallo films and that's because that was always Wan's intention. (Image courtesy of Imdb.com)
Despite being directed by James Wan, Malignant received very little exposure outside the normal horror movie circles, so we decided to keep our expectations at their lowest considering the movie description was kept pretty vague. Now after watching it, we understood why. You couldn't talk further about the movie and its plot without spoiling it. Heck, even the title was a huge spoiler, but for the most part, the studio, the director and the promotional sources actually kept the storyline pretty close to the chest.
One of those symmetrical shots James Wan loved to drop in his movies. (Image courtesy of slashfilm.com)
Malignant stars Annabelle Wallis (Tag, The Mummy), Maddie Hasson (We Summon the Darkness), George Young and others.
The movie starts out with a flashback of sorts that is revealed towards the end to be very closely tied to the main storyline (Duh. Otherwise why would they show it in the first place, right?). It then transitions to the present time and focuses on a pregnant Madison who is married to an abusive husband. After he slams her head into a wall, Madison starts experiencing visions. Unbeknownst to her, these visions turn out to be happening in real life. Now, she must try to uncover the truth behind her visions, her imaginary friend, Gabriel, and how all of them are connected.
(Image courtesy of indiewire.com)
When we first watched Malignant, it reminded us of those campy classic horror movies with the cheesy effects (at the time) and we just couldn't put our finger on it. After taking time to analyse it in its entirety, we realised that it was a nod to those Giallo films or as some would call spaghetti thrillers/slashers that were released in the 60's and 70's.
We've watched our fair share of those movies and thoroughly enjoyed them and this movie just paid tribute to those suspenseful, the-best-they-could-with-the technology-they-had horror effects, heavy-laden sound effects tracks and stiff-with-a-purpose acting.
Malignant, translated to current times is exactly that. It doesn't need to make sense because it's not supposed to make sense. It's just supposed to entertain and expand our minds to the possibilities of the plot happening in real life, much like how spaghetti slashers promoted the theme of "what if".
(Image courtesy of denofgeek.com)
Let's dive into the production quality of the movie.
Personally for us, Malignant employed extremely satisfying shots and camera angles. Mostly symmetrical, there were a few that caught our fancy, especially the scene where Madison was running through the house and the camera tracked her movements from above with the entire layout of the house presented in a cross-section presentation style. That scene made us go, "Oof" followed by a chef's kiss kind of gesture.
The sound effects added to the suspense experienced by Madison and the horror/special effects were done subtly yet tastefully that no matter how many times we saw the creature reveal, it still didn't bore us.
In terms of storytelling, it was written intelligently with several revelations throughout the movie that just fit like a perfectly designed puzzle. Though there were some scenes that were just too convenient, like Madison's sister, Sydney, going to the institute and back with no problems, other scenes and plot lines moved fluidly and gratifyingly.
Unfortunately, we can't spoil the movie as we insist that you watch it, but Malignant is one of those movies that after watching it, you either love it or hate it. The only thing we can tell you is that our main takeaway is that the antagonist is basically an Edward Mordrake on crack.
(Image courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com)
All in all, Asian Does Horror gives Malignant 👻👻👻👻 out of five. We rarely give out five stars, but Malignant came pretty close to getting it.
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