In his latest horror exercise it looks like Malaysian/Australian producer/filmmaker James Wan (Aquaman, Insidious) is really slumming it.
Many, in fat might feel like Malignant is an apt description for the kind of dubious, shoddy ways to conjure up a potboiler behind a violent frenzy in a medical institution. After which a doctor utters “time to cut out the cancer” prior to a sizable time jump.
The unlikely, particularly underwhelming tale is primed b a victim of domestic abuse, a near-birthing Madison (Annabelle Wallis of Annabelle). Upon another vicious episode Madison’s reality is intruded upon by what appeared to occur at ominous, dated facility. Wallis’s younger version is embodied by the promising, if undervalued McKenna Grace.
For a good portion of the running-time Wan looks to rely on an arbitrary approach (especially in-the production) that mutes any chills as lurid acts become more rampant. The line readings come across as amateurish, not to mention a-fair amount of lensing. How the characters often act when it comes to such a formidable antagonist even seems risible for this kind of fare.
Yet, like a churning dry ice machine Malignant lulls you through its grisly antics before the director show what he’s learned from taking on blockbusters that have included Jason Momoa and Vin Diesel. Maddie Hasson as Madison’s cheery sister Sydney incurs a bit of empathy in line with the likable, easy on the eyes detective (George Young). Even if character interplay isn’t much of a priority so the quality of acting is given a pass.
The opportunity to use predictability and pallor for an authentic turn is seized upon to straddle genre boundaries in ways to induce the balletic from the internecine. The distinctly desultory somehow makes an about-face from what it suspiciously doesn’t try to be. As a plan for simultaneous opening from a major studio in this case could hardly be classified as cancerous.