Malignant, directed by James Wan, tells the tale of Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis), a woman just trying to live her best life and start a lovely family. But one night, Madison starts having dreams of people getting brutally murdered, only to realize those murders are happening in real life. Terrified of what will happen next, Madison must find out the truth on why she’s having these deadly premonitions before it’s too late.

This is the latest horror film from director James Wan after taking a brief break from the genre with 2018’s Aquaman. I originally had no intention in watching this film since I’m not the biggest fan of James Wan’s horror movies, but I caved in after hearing about everyone’s reaction about what exactly this films about and how much of a divide it’s creating between audiences and critics. After seeing this film, yeah…I get the commotion now. On one hand, Malignant is a dull, overly long horror flick with boring characters, cheap jump scares, and a generic plot, but on the other hand, Malignant has one of the most out there, over-the-top, absolutely BONKERS third act I’ve seen in a long time, and believe me: that third act was

G L O R I O U S

For the first half of the film, this is not really any different from Wan’s other films. Sure there’s a lot of quirky camera tricks the director employs to make it fun, and a lot of it is very reminiscent of 80’s B-movie style horror especially with composer Joseph Bishara’s super synth-ey score, but a lot of my problems with Wan’s previous horror films carry over here as well. The plot is not that interesting; not only are you able to catch on and see what’s going to happen next very early, it’s also super drawn out. The film takes its sweet time bear-crawling towards the big reveal. None of the characters were interesting, despite Annabelle Wallis giving it her all as the lead, the jump scares are very hit-or-miss, with a good chunk of it being very miss, and the film’s screenplay leaves a lot to be desired, with a lot of lines sounding pretty dang corny.

But all that changes when the film’s last thirty minutes kick in, and believe me: it’s about as insane as everyone describes it. The twist, even though it’s not too difficult to figure out, is still out there; this film stops being a psychological horror flick and does a complete 180 and transforms itself into straight 80’s B-movie cheese the moment the film’s twist is revealed. I can’t say too much about what happens in the film’s beautiful last act, but all I can say without spoiling anything is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The only thing that ruins it, however, is the ending, which was so corny it brings the film’s manic energy that it suddenly generated from the climax to a grinding halt.

Overall I want to like this movie if anything for its absolutely stupendous climax, but there’s so much generic slop you’ll need to wade through in order to witness pure B-movie cheese. Honestly I don’t know who exactly this movie is for. If this sounds like something you’ll like or if your burning curiosity is too much then I guess you can go check this film out. Considering a lot of casual audiences are not vibing with this film, however, chances are this probably might not be the movie for you.

Final Verdict: 5/10