The co-creator of theSawandInsidiousfranchises and the creator ofThe Conjuringuniverse, James Wan is a modern horror master. His movies entertain millions with their effective jump scares andimpressive storytelling, and have even broken some records. BothSawandThe Conjuringare in the top ten highest-grossing horror franchises of all time (the latter taking the top spot), whileInsidiousis remarkable for single-handedly putting viewers off Tiny Tim for life. But dare we say his best movie isn’t listed above, bombed at the box office, and has as many one-star reviews as it has five. The movie isMalignant, and it happens to be his most ludicrous yet.
Released in 2021, it follows a young woman named Madison (Annabelle Wallis) who has disturbing visions of the murders of strangers. When she comes to, these visions become realities, and she’s left to put the pieces together. Why her? Why them? And what on earth is happening?It’s an interesting premisewith an even more interesting plot twist.Malignantis absurd. But don’t just take our word for it, read on to discover the craziness for yourself.
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The movie begins with Madison pregnant and living in Seattle with her abusive husband, Derek (Jake Abel). An argument ensues, in which Derek blames Madison for miscarrying their other babies, and then smashes her head against the wall. That evening, Madison has a vision of Derek being murdered in their house by a shadowy creature with long hair. When she wakes up, still bleeding from her head injury, she discovers Derek’s dead body as she envisioned it. Madison is taken to the hospital after fighting with the killer and becomes a suspect in the police investigation into Derek’s murder. Returning home,supernatural things happen around her— streetlights flicker ominously and doors open on their own —and she has more visions. One evening, she’s doing laundry at home when a woman’s face appears in the glass of her washing machine door. The woman, named Dr Weaver (Jacqueline McKenzie), screams at her to get out of her house, butsheis the intruder. Or is she? In an impressive feat of cinematography, Madison’s surroundings dissolve so that she is now in Dr Weaver’s house, witnessing her murder.
Another day and another vision. This time the man who’s being murdered is a colleague of Dr Weaver, named Dr Fields (Christian Clemenson). This time, Madison leads the police to his body, proving her visions are real. While neither she nor the audience knows why she’s having them, the audience at least knows what ties the victims together. At the beginning of the movie, Dr Weaver and Dr Fields are working at Simion Research Hospital. It’s 1993, and they’re treating a patient named Gabriel who cancontrol electricity and communicate via radio waves. Whatever he is, he’s not human, and he’s dangerous. After he kills a group of workers at the hospital, Dr Weaver restrains him and says the cryptic words: “It’s time to cut out the cancer.” In the present day, these words are repeated to her on the phone before she’s murdered in Madison’s vision.
Gabriel (portrayed by Marina Mazepa and voiced by Ray Chase) is the killer and he’s killing the people that failed to kill him. But what has any of that got to do with Madison? Well,if you can believe it, Gabriel is Madison’s sort of twin brother: an extreme version of a teratoma. At the beginning of the movie, he’s growing out of the back of Madison’s head. While Dr Weaver and her colleagues were successful in removing most of his body, he still shares a spinal cord and brain with Madison, which explains her visions. Madison’s visions are so vivid because she was present at the murders. Gabriel hijacked her brain to commit them and also imprison their mother, Serena May (Jean Louisa Kelly). Oh, and that’s another plot twist: Madison is adopted. Viewers learn this fairly on in the movie when Madison tells her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) she was taken in by the latter’s parents when she was eight years old. She can’t remember her life before this and has no idea who her biological family are.
Amid the police investigations, Madison gets a call from Gabriel who calls her Emily (her birth name). This triggers something in Madison and she goes to her adopted mother, Jeanne (Susanna Thompson) for answers. Jeanne tells Madison that Gabriel was her imaginary friend as a child and that he often got her into trouble. But of course, that isn’t true. Gabriel wasn’t imaginary, but he did tell her to do bad things — namely kill Sydney in the womb. Madison didn’t, and after Sydney was born, Gabriel went quiet, never to be seen or heard from again until the day of Derek’s murder. When Madison smashed her head against the wall, it reawakened Gabriel. Signs of him thereafter were everywhere, from the flickering streetlights (Gabriel can control electricity) to the killer’s strange movements. The killer moved backwards and wore a trench coat that we now know covered Madison’s face. He also had the same hair and figure as Madison, which should’ve beena major cluethe two were closely linked.
And while Madison’s injury might’ve reawakened Gabriel, he was still causing trouble before it. Those miscarriages Madison had were the result of Gabriel feeding off her unborn babies to gain strength. Sydney makes this discovery in the second-best scene in the movie: the ending, where Madison uses all the hatred she has for Gabriel to take back control of her mind and imprison him there for good. The best scene comes not long before it, and it shows Madison’s transformation into Gabriel for the first time. Madison is in prison for Gabriel’s crime of locking their mother up in her attic when her fellow inmates start ganging up on her, prompting Gabriel to rear his gloriously ugly head for all to see. Flesh is pulled, bones are broken, and it’s as disgusting as it is hilarious. It’sJames Wanat his best.
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