Malignant — a horror film where James Wan’s ghost story becomes something far stranger

Madison, played by Annabelle Wallis, begins waking from vivid and disturbing visions of murders — killings she has not witnessed but that turn out to be happening in real time. The connection between her dreams and the violence forms the engine of the first half: a puzzle structured like a supernatural thriller, heavy on atmosphere, flickering lights, and a black-clad figure that moves through walls.

Wan establishes the rules of a classic haunted-protagonist film. There is a mysterious past, a suburban house with rooms that should not exist, and a villain whose nature seems spiritually rooted. The production design leans deliberately gothic — wide angles, practical shadows, a score that borrows from late-1970s Italian horror without directly quoting it. For its first hour, Malignant behaves exactly as expected.

Recommended ReadingWarning — a sci-fi anthology on what loneliness looks like after technology wins

Then something shifts. In the final act, the film discards its own scaffolding and delivers a sequence that is simultaneously ridiculous and spectacular — a genre switch so complete that it reads as an artistic bet rather than a structural accident. Screenwriter Akela Cooper, who wrote from a story developed with Wan and Ingrid Bisu, clearly knew where the film was going. Whether that destination lands depends entirely on whether the viewer’s appetite for spectacle over logic is running high.

Wallis holds the center even when the material around her gets strange. Her performance is largely reactive — the role requires it; she is the tether to coherence as the film tests how far it can depart from its own premise. George Young and Michole Briana White provide grounding in the police procedural thread running alongside the supernatural plot. Overhead camera moves in the final act push toward something close to abstraction, which is either exhilarating or frustrating depending on what the audience came for.

Malignant is not frightening in the way Wan’s earlier films operated. The Conjuring films and Insidious built dread through restraint; this film reaches instead for a pulp-horror spectacle — the kind of deliberate excess that earned the word “gonzo” in coverage of directors who enjoyed breaking their own genre rules. The ambition is evident. The results are uneven.

Produced under Wan’s Atomic Monster banner, the film was released by Warner Bros. in September 2021 with simultaneous availability on HBO Max. It found its audience not in the theatrical window but in the months that followed, through home viewing and word of mouth among horror fans who prize ambition over smoothness. The cast is rounded out by Maddie Hasson, Michole Briana White, Jacqueline McKenzie, and George Young.

More Like This

Hypnotic — the 2021 Netflix thriller where a hypnotherapist turns self-help into something far more dangerous

“Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” (2021) – A Movie that fuses fantasy and thriller – Now on Prime Video

Goodnight Mommy (2022) – Film Review

Dangerous Lies (2020). Movies. Netflix. Trailer

‘Nanny'(2022) – A Horror Movie on Prime Video – Review: Evocative, Hypnotic, Subtle

Ambulance (2022). Movie Reviews