Madison (Annabelle Wallis) is being haunted by visions of horrific murders, and she’s paralyzed by the terrifying visuals. What she soon comes to realize is that a Malignant being is not simply a figment of her imagination as she originally believed, but a treacherous reality. As the murders continue and Madison finds herself enveloped in all that is occurring, she, her friends, and the local authorities must try to unravel the mystery of Gabriel (Ray Chase/Marina Mazepa), the unique being that has wreaked havoc on locals.
I’ll be completely honest: I was bored throughout the course of the first half of Malignant. I know that there is an intensity present in the film, but that intensity never transcends the audience or allows them to feel the same sense of urgency that the characters in the film do. I can’t quite pinpoint the reason as to why the film fails to entertain viewers in this way, but I’ve come to the understanding that it has something to do with Malignant’s pacing and how uninteresting is its lead character, Madison.
Let’s start with the pacing. It takes over an hour for anything to really develop. Viewers see the haunting visuals laid out by writer-director James Wan, but it all seems irrelevant until about the hour and five-minute mark. With just glimpses of the Malignant being sprinkled throughout, often in terribly predictable places, viewers have entirely too much time to lose interest in what’s occurring. Viewers need a more steady connection to said being, and they need to be provided the ability to dive deeper into its backstory earlier on in the film. It took a long time for the film to develop and give viewers a reason to care, and that hindered the entire experience.
Now onto the characters. Madison is dreadfully unrelatable, and viewers struggle to find ways to connect with her and appreciate her story. She isn’t poorly acted, but rather poorly written--which, in the case of Malignant, is far worse. As Madison is developed throughout the film, Wan, along with writers Ingrid Bisu and Akela Cooper, fail to give viewers enough pertinent information to care about Madison. Again, all of this occurs throughout the course of the first half of the film, but much like the horrific pacing, it became a struggle to become refocused throughout the second and third acts of Malignant.
Dialogue, too, is an issue--not only throughout the first half of Malignant--but the film in its entirety. The dialogue is unsophisticated and remedial, failing to create meaningful conversations between characters or invigorate the film in any way. The dialogue is bland and leaves viewers feeling underwhelmed and somewhat unhappy throughout Malignant. There were times where I visibly cringed at the rudimentary nature of the dialogue, as the conversations often felt unnatural and sometimes even unnecessary.
With all of this being said, it’s clear that the first half (and even parts of the second half) of Malignant was nothing short of horrific, but suddenly, around that one-hour mark, everything shifts and the film becomes far more entertaining. Seemingly out of thin air a spark ignites the rest of the film, and that spark comes in the form of George Young (Kekoa Shaw). The scene in question (and I won’t give too much away) is full of life and Kekoa becomes the most endearing and entertaining character in the film. He breathes life back into a stagnant film and allows viewers to slowly crawl back to Malignant and appreciate all that follows. From this moment forward the pacing is better, the characters become more interesting, and the overall story becomes far more engrossing than it had been before. I wish that the film possessed this same amount of vigor in the first act, and had it, Malignant would have been nothing short of spectacular.
I’ve never quit on a film. I’ve always given each and every film the respect that its cast and crew deserved and watched from beginning to end. While I never planned to shut the film off, this is the closest I’ve been in a long time to giving up on a film and labeling it a lost cause. Malignant was cumbersome, boring, and downright difficult to appreciate through the first act, but Wan, along with the rest of the cast and crew, found their footing at the start of the second act and reeled me back in. I love the shift in tone, character development, and overall storyline about halfway through the film, as it very literally saved the film from what appeared to be guaranteed failure. Malignant is truly creepy, spine tingling, and captivating once the ball gets rolling. This is one of the most demented films of the year, and Wan gets himself back on the map with his first horror film since 2016. I encourage everyone to remain calm and give Malignant a chance to develop, because once it does you’ll be glad you stuck around.
Directed by James Wan.
Written by James Wan, Ingrid Bisu, Akela Cooper.
Starring Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White, Jean Louisa Kelly, Susanna Thompson, Jake Abel, Jacqueline McKenzie, Christian Clemenson, Ray Chase, Marina Mazepa, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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