James Wan’s Malignant wants to scare you, and mostly succeeds. It also wants to explain everything. That ambition splits the film in half.
Annabelle Wallis plays Madison Mitchell, a woman whose waking nightmares become actual killings. Her husband Derek, played by Jake Abel, is abusive and violent. When Derek hits Madison during an argument about her miscarriages, she sees a man enter the house and kill him. She wakes to find Derek dead and a stranger knocking her out. The movie spends its first hour building tension around those visions. It works.
Then the film introduces Gabriel, a former patient of Dr. Florence Weaver at Simion Research Hospital. Gabriel escaped in 1993, killed staff members, and controls electricity. He can broadcast his thoughts through speakers. The movie connects him to Madison’s visions, but it does so through a twist that feels less like a revelation and more like a convenience.
Trailer, via HBO Max.
The Early Hours Work
The early hours are the strongest part of Malignant. Wan knows how to build dread without showing too much. Madison’s visions are unsettling because they arrive without warning, and the film keeps them vague enough that the audience shares Madison’s confusion. The scenes where Madison watches Derek die while awake are genuinely uncomfortable.
The supporting cast helps. George Young and Michole Briana White play detectives Kekoa Shaw and Regina Moss, and they ground the investigation in something close to normal. Maddie Hasson plays Madison’s sister Sydney, and her scenes with Wallis feel human even when the script goes off the rails. The film’s best stretch is the quiet conversation between Madison and Sydney, where the sisters talk about Madison’s adoption and what she remembers of her past.
The Twist Falls Flat
The twist connecting Gabriel to Madison is the film’s undoing. The movie spends the final act explaining that Gabriel was Madison’s imaginary friend from childhood, and that he might also be someone she knew before her adoption. This explanation is thin. The film tries to make the connection feel inevitable, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
The problem isn’t the idea itself. A killer tied to a childhood trauma could work. But Malignant rushes the reveal and under-explains it. The audience is left with a question that the film doesn’t answer satisfactorily.
Wallis Carries It
Wallis carries the film. She sells Madison’s fear and confusion, and she makes the character’s breakdowns feel earned. The other actors are solid, but they’re working with a script that gives them fewer interesting lines. McKenzie, as Dr. Weaver, gets some of the film’s best scenes, but even her performance can’t save the finale.
What Works
- Wallis’s performance anchors the early hours
- The vision sequences are genuinely unsettling
- The relationship between Madison and Sydney feels real
- Wan’s direction keeps the pacing tight
What Doesn’t
- The Gabriel twist is rushed and under-explained
- The middle act drags
- The film explains too much, too fast
Hard Numbers
- Runtime: 111 minutes
- Released: September 10, 2021
- Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
- Available on: HBO Max
- Gross: $34 million
Malignant is a film that understands fear better than it understands its own mystery. The setup is strong, the execution is weaker. The result is a movie that scares you for a while, then asks you to accept a twist that doesn’t quite land.
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