Malignant

Certain highlights make you wish that Wan imbued the rest of the narrative with as much flair and originality. A chase sequence down a fire escape and into subterranean tunnels is near-perfect in execution, as is a jailhouse slaughter (the latter is truly one of the most visceral, guffaw-and-vomit-inducing sequences in memory). A specially-forged golden dagger is used as the primary weapon of choice, slashing and stabbing folks into chunks of flesh.

Too bad that Wan feels the need to include prolonged, uninspired stretches, driven by Akela Cooper’s script that, let’s face it, will not be winning any awards. Here are some of the better snippets: “You’ve been a bad, bad boy Gabriel”; “It was like he was drinking electricity”; “He’s… broadcasting his thoughts!”; and the tagline of sorts: “It’s time we cut out the cancer.” On the one hand, the cheesier the line and its delivery, the better: “So I’m putting out a BOLO on Sloth from The Goonies?” a detective inquires after Madison provides a visual depiction of Gabriel. But then, the hammy bits of Malignant clash with the all-too-real trauma that Wan touches upon here: the trauma of bad parenting, of abusive relationships, of dark elements from your past coming back to haunt you, of keeping psychological demons at bay.

“…truly inspired moments shine, not to mention the final third that has to be seen to be believed.”

The film suffers from a tremendous amount of exposition and overstuffing. It slides off the rails when Wan resorts to special-effects-driven sequences – something that has been an Achilles heel since Insidious. The walls melt away, the characters are transported into another realm, or dimension, or whatever the location may be, to witness unimaginable terrors that are rendered dubious by all the distracting visual embellishments. The movie would’ve been infinitely more concise and effective had the filmmaker stuck with the cunning simplicity of scenes like Madison squinting out the window to detect whether something is standing under a shimmering lamppost. Unnecessary subplots and deviations stretch out and bog the narrative down.

If you ignore the obvious questions – why would the villain bother with kitchen appliances, or channel-surfing, prior to chopping up his victims aside from providing entertainment for the viewer? – the plot does hold together, albeit creakily. Malignant, as jumbled as it is, surely stands out amidst others of its ilk. With well over 20 titles in development, including the Insidious and Aquaman sequels, Wan the Horror/Action auteur, Master of Sensory Overload, is here to stay. His latest represents an amalgamation of his best and worst impulses.