Malignant

Pure fun. The trailer touted a completely different film, but in the end James Wan actually made a Giallo purely for fun, but not the 70s Giallo, the serious kind that worked with pretty colours, a classic detective line and a masked killer in a black cloak, gloves and a knife; Malignant is closer to the later Giallo, which used to be spiced up with some completely insane fantasy element. It's hard to write about it without spoilers, but it would be a shame to reveal the film's plot twists. The script is fun because of the speed to which it builds up the plot, which is actually terribly silly and trashy. If it were another filmmaker, you might well wonder whether they are joking or being serious about this kind of film, but Malignant is clearly anchored somewhere in between. It has a lot of exaggerated details that seem downright comedic, which is obviously the intention, and it should be taken as some sort of playful joke with which the director had fun on the set, and which the viewer should also have fun with. That some of the details don’t make sense, it doesn’t matter. (10/09/2021)

A bland episode of Tales from the Crypt that only becomes entertaining during the overblown Troma-like finale. The problem is that before it tears off the chain, it's preceded by a full-length runtime of sheer boredom, zero tension building, unimaginative gore, slavish Giallo allusions, generic characters and non-existent atmosphere. There's a real risk that you won't even be awake for the finale. (07/05/2022)

Cronenberg giallo through Wan’s lens? A lot of bombast that mainstream viewers won’t care about. I enjoyed the visuals, Annabelle Wallis and courage but instead of being pleased by the point and the climax resulting from it, I found myself shaking my head. (10/10/2021)

A festival of bad decisions and red herrings, including some outright lies during the exposition. I am glad that James Wan is gradually trampling into the ground any expectations for the next variation on The Conjuring, but the direction he's taking is very wrong-headed for the given moment. The inferno of the last half hour does show how good of an action director he is, but I simply did not have the capacity to take anything happening on the screen seriously, even for a second. And yes, I understand that there are a lot of references and homages here, but when the source material you're referencing is a genre questionable at best, and you're replicating it in the majority of factors, I won't give you credit for imitation when the result is such a B-movie. (06/10/2021)

Batshit bonkers! Even Wan has realised that you can't live without gore. Emotionally, maybe at four stars, but genre-wise I have to give it a full score, because James Wan has once again delivered a horror film that is essential, that will not be forgotten and that has brought something out of the ordinary. Argento, Bava, Carpenter and Cronenberg, you can see them there to be felt and it's an homage to giallo, body horror, crime and most importantly Italy in the 1970s and 80s. Gloves, a stylish murder weapon, a black cloak and dark red. The beautiful Annabelle Wallis suffers from visions where she sees gruesome and raw murders (gorgeous!). Malignant will certainly not please fans of PG-13 ghost stories and probably won't say anything to teenagers as they need to have the term giallo explained to them, but I enjoyed it. Visually, it’s very appealing, the music is downright banging (the soundtrack already has a cult-classic feel to it). Like Wan's Saw, it has a likeable B-movie like story with a creepy twist that, while guessable beforehand, is disturbing and refreshing enough to make you forgive it. Everything culminates in the insane third act, where Wan gets unleashed like a lion that hasn't eaten in days. The prison scene is so stylish and insanely paced that even the The Raid would bow before it. I screamed with delight again and again and will probably replay this sequence every time I'm in a bad mood. When I read that violence makes people sick, it makes me sick. Not for fancy people. Story 4/5, Action 5/5, Humor 0/5, Violence 4/5, Funny 4/5 Music 5/5, Visuals 5/5, Atmosphere 5/5, Suspense 4/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 3/5. 8.5/10. (17/09/2021)