Today’s horror experience has me convinced there should be another Scriptshadow Showdown before the end of the year. Details coming soon!
Genre: Horror
Premise: After losing her baby, a young woman starts to have visions of a mysterious killer massacring his victims.
About: This one comes from James Wan, he of Aquaman fame. Wan is jetsetting back to his horror roots! Malignant only made 5.7 million at the box office this weekend but it’s tough to judge that number since it was available on HBO Max for free. Malignant also decided to keep its twist out of the marketing, which was a brave move, seeing as doing so would’ve, at the very least, doubled its revenue.
Writers: Story by James Wan and Ingrid Bisu. Script by Akela Cooper
Details: 110 minutes
When I pressed play on this movie, my first thought was, “Why the hell is James Wan going back to horror???” He’s directed Fast and Furious movies. He turned a so-so superhero into a billion dollar franchise. As much as I love horror, it is the stepping stone genre to bigger and brighter pastures. It didn’t make sense for someone this big to go back to it.
But after doing a little digging, I learned that James Wan’s wife came up with this idea. My assessment of the project immediately shifted upon hearing this news. Just to be clear, I don’t dislike when people in relationships work together. However, what I’ve learned is that it’s harder for a couple to see an idea clearly when they’re seeing it through the prism of, also, managing their relationship.
Two of the biggest movie stars in the world – Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – made a movie together and ten people saw it. Branjelina couldn’t see through their own relationship enough to recognize how boring their concept was.
For 90 minutes, while watching Malignant, I felt bad for James Wan. I figured his wife came to him with this idea. He wanted to make her happy so he agreed to direct it. He ends up having to release this unwatchable ridiculous horror movie… Good husband move. Bad artistic move.
But then something magical happens in Malignant. The twist arrives. And that twist is SO GOOD that it becomes the first twist in history to retroactively make the entire previous 90 minutes awesome.
In order to fully understand how this can be, you need to watch this movie. The film can’t be discussed without its twist. So I’m going to be discussing that here. You can read my review first. But you’re going to be robbing yourself of a really fun movie-watching experience.
The ridiculous plot of Malignant goes something like this. There’s this pregnant woman named Madison who was adopted as a child. She loses her baby when her abusive boyfriend beats her up. And now she’s trying to pick up the pieces in a creepy old house she moved into.
Meanwhile, a serial killer (or serial kidnapper) is out there killing and kidnapping people, then taking them back to his Hunchback of Notre Dame clock tower and stringing them up to the ceiling like a spider. I’m not kidding. This really happens.
From there, two of the cheesiest cops you’ve ever encountered in a movie try to find the killer. But they’re so bad at their jobs (not to mention talking to each other in a believable way) that they keep missing the killer. That is until Madison comes to them, with her sister in tow (who’s up for “Most Random Character of the Year”) and says Madison’s been having visions of the killer killing these people! The cops reluctantly bring her into the fold and start to get closer to finding the killer.
Meanwhile, Madison’s sister heads off to learn more about her adopted sister. She’s only recently found out Madison was adopted. This leads her to a psychiatric hospital and an old video tape of who her sister really is. And here, my friends, is where the big twist arrives. Spoilers ahead.
Have you ever heard about those people who have rare disfigurements where they have, like, some teeth and a nose partially growing out of their neck? Well, it turns out Madison had the most extreme version of this disfigurement. An entire second person was growing out of her back. And this disfigured thing had its own personality and everything.
So the hospital eventually had to cut the thing out. But, the only way they could do that was to shove the remainder of the thing’s face back into Madison’s skull. This “thing,” who calls himself “Gabriel,” has taken over her mind and is the actual serial killer. But it’s not just that. Since this thing grew out of her back, it’s learned to readjust Madison’s muscular-skeletal alignment and walk around backwards, resulting in some legitimately creepy offbeat physicality.
Madison finally recognizes that this thing has been taking over her body and fights back. But Gabriel isn’t letting the body go that easily. Only one of them will win out. Who will it be???
I don’t know how Malignant did it.
The second that image arrives on screen – where we see old footage of Madison, as a little girl, with this secondary monster thing growing out of her back – everything about the movie changed in an instant. It goes from stupid and nonsensical to “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” There’s this funny shot of the sister watching the video, horrified, that’s so over-acted, it’s ridiculous. And yet you’re reacting the exact same way she is.
But the genius of Malignant is that it doesn’t end with that shot. There are a lot of movie twists that don’t have legs. This one has ‘deadlift a thousand pounds’ legs. Because, while we’re watching this horrifying old video tape, we cut to Madison, who’s in jail with a bunch of women who are bullying her, and she turns around and opens up the back of her skull, allowing “Gabriel” to peek out, and she/Gabriel starts slaughtering everyone.
But not facing them. She kills them all backwards because Gabriel can only see out of the back of her head. This means that Madison’s bones need to twist and crack in a certain way so that they’re usable behind her. And that leads to an utterly unique fighting style that you’ve never seen before.
Why am I making a big deal out of this? Well, every horror movie these days either does the upside-down creepy crab-walk thing. Or they turn scary people backwards. But nobody ever comes up with a reason for why these people are backwards. It’s lazy writing.
The fact that these three figured out a way to not only have it make sense that the entity walked backwards, but then asked the question, how would something like this operate? And then built an entire backwards fighting style around it? – it was awesome. There’s no other word for it. I love when writers DO THE WORK and figure out why things are happening instead of throwing stuff onscreen with only a vague sense of how they work. They really thought about this character.
One of the creepiest images I’ve seen in a long time is when Gabriel takes over the body, Madison’s mind goes dead. So he’s running around, killing everyone, and, occasionally, we’ll spin around to see Madison’s face, which is in a dead stasis state. The fact that she’s doing these horrible things and is helplessly along for the ride was creepy as hell.
So how does it make the previous 90 minutes better?
Because once you realize how absurd this idea is, it allows you to not take everything so seriously. Any movie that ends with a functioning human tumor shouldn’t result in you getting mad because the cop character is boring. When you watch it a second time – which I plan to – you just laugh your ass off at the fact that this cop is such a tool.
Leading up to the movie, I kept hearing this word being bandied about – “bonkers.” Bonkers can either be a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes people use the word for a movie that falls apart so spectacularly that they want to validate spending two hours on it so they say it was “BONKERS!” But Malignant really is bonkers. It’s so out there. It’s so weird. The movie is all over the place. I mean at one point they randomly show you that underneath the city is a second dead city that this city was built on top of. And then they just keep going on with the movie and never mention it again. It’s so silly and so stupid and so random. But I dare anyone to watch it and not be riveted by the third act.
The confusing thing is that so many of these horror movies start strong and fall apart. But this movie somehow does the opposite. And if there’s a preference between the two, that’s the one you want to use. You want start weak then finish with a bang. I mean, you want to do both, of course. But there’s nothing like the feeling of a movie that ends on a high. And WOW did this leave on a high. James Wan and his wife are geniuses!
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Where you place your big twist has a major effect on the third act. You can put it late in the third act, like The Sixth Sense does, and just allow people to finish on that adrenaline high. Or you can put it at the beginning of the third act and use the reveal to drive those last 25 minutes, like Malignant does. Once we learn she’s the killer and has this tumor thing controlling her, we watch her become this killing machine all the way up until the final scene. Every movie is different so you should assess this tip on a case-by-case basis, but I like the ‘beginning of the third act’ twist a lot because you get to stay with the twist (and play with the twist) longer.
