Malignant parents guide

Malignant Parent Guide

This film is so bad it's an insult to B-movies.

Overall D

In Theaters and HBO Max: Madison "sees things" - horrifying visions of gruesome murders. But then she discovers that her visions are real...

Release date September 10, 2021

Violence D
Sexual Content A
Profanity D
Substance Use A

Why is Malignant rated R? The MPAA rated Malignant R for strong horror violence and gruesome images, and for language

Run Time: 111 minutes

Parent Movie Review

Madison’s (Annabelle Wallis) life is hard. She’s struggling through a difficult pregnancy, and her boyfriend Derek (Jake Abel) is violently abusive. And although it seems things can’t get worse, they can: A violent break-in at her home leaves her with no boyfriend and no pregnancy, just shockingly real nightmares of other people being murdered. It looks like the murderer Madison sees is the same person who broke into her home, but Madison knows him from somewhere else - her past…

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie. Director James Wan is responsible for mediocre, familiar horror fare like several of the Insidious and The Conjuring films, neither of which are noted for their originality. I will say, he’s managed to be a little more unique with Malignant. Uniquely terrible, at any rate.

Whether it’s the dialogue (which is wooden enough to produce its own sawdust) or the premise (both familiar and boring, a winning combination), there’s not much this movie does well. Malignant manages to create a made-for-TV ambience, but not in a fun way. The only remarkable thing about this movie is the fact that it took three people to write it. I don’t think it’s so much a matter of “too many chefs” as it is “too many untrained buffoons who can’t tell salt from sugar”.

The biggest problem is that the villain is not actually scary. Once you see what’s actually happening, it’s surprisingly stupid. Of course, you see a lot more than that. The primary point of the villain seems to be to a) create red light in as many scenes as possible and b) to produce as much gore as possible. Throughout the film there are repeated stabbings, a lot of compound fractures, and a particularly gory brawl which sees an individual’s head crushed like an overripe watermelon.

I think the only way to improve this film is to cut the runtime, preferably down to around zero minutes. It’s stupid, cliched, and hugely irritating. I have a soft spot for B-movie horror, but this is an insult to B-movies. We’d need a whole new alphabet to quantify how terrible this movie is. If you’re somehow still on the fence about watching this, then that’s on you. I have to watch this, it’s my job: What’s your excuse?

Directed by James Wan. Starring Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young. Running time: 111 minutes. Theatrical release September 10, 2021. Updated

Malignant
Rating & Content Info

Why is Malignant rated R? Malignant is rated R by the MPAA for strong horror violence and gruesome images, and for language

Violence: People are stabbed, bludgeoned, impaled, have their arteries torn out, dissected, have their skulls torn open or bashed apart, and shot.
Sexual Content: None.
Profanity:  There are 15 sexual expletives, 12 scatological terms, and occasional uses of mild profanities and terms of deity.
Alcohol / Drug Use: Adults are briefly seen drinking alcohol.

Page last updated

Home Video

Related home video titles:

James Wan recently directed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and Annabelle Comes Home. There are, however, better made horror alternatives, including The Night House, It Comes at Night, The Lodge, Hereditary, Midsommar, and Things Heard and Seen. This movie is remarkably similar to Z and Brahms: The Boy II