What do you think of Malignant? Make sure to let me know on Twitter or Facebook! Transcript of episode follows:
The second official trailer for Malignant was posted on the Warner Brothers YouTube Channel. In it, director James Wan states, “You gotta take chances. If you don’t, you’ll end up making the same old thing again and again and again.”
Off of my Twitter feed, I would have thought this paid off, tenfold or threefold as he said again and again and again. But let me start by reading you the only negative criticism I saw on my Twitter timeline for Malignant this thread of tweets came from @AdamFrazier spelled F-R-A-Z-I-E-R. He’s a good follow, so go follow him today. And I’m going to read it like I think he sounds because I’ve never heard this guy before.
“Oh, my God. Malignant is hilariously bad. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like James Wan A Simple Favor or Paul Feig’s Insidious. The script is bad, the acting is bad. It’s just an absolute mess from top to bottom. It’s like an Evanescence music video with jumpscares.
The cast is filled with variants. There’s not Angelina Jolie, not Keanu Reeves. Not Florence Pugh. Hell, there’s even a not Wanda Sykes. If you’ve got HBO Max and love trash, you’ve got to watch this. I’m positively baffled by nearly every decision made. It’s bonkers. Banana-ass crazy. I laughed. I gasped. I cringed. I looked away in embarrassment.
Zoe Belle plays a trashy prison lady with a mullet named Scorpion. Just Wow.”
Oh my god, MALIGNANT is HILARIOUSLY bad. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like James Wan’s A SIMPLE FAVOR or Paul Feig’s INSIDIOUS. The script is bad, the acting is bad, it’s just an absolute mess from top to bottom. It’s like an Evanescence music video with jump scares.
— HELLFRAZIER🔥 (@AdamFrazier) September 11, 2021
Thankfully, his tweets allowed me to go into the movie with my guard up, it allowed me to at least enjoy the movie a little bit. Without it, I may have fell out of my seat with laughter as I sat through Malignant. The main critique I have of Adam’s tweets is I would have said poor man’s Elisha Cuthbert, instead of Florence Pugh.
Opening Shot of Malignant
Again, just like in Cry Macho, we got an establishing shot of the hospital, the Guiding Light hospital for an opening shot. And again, I have to ask, do you think an ass-tablishing, ass-stablishing shot – an establishing shot is a good way to open a movie? Remember, the first thing you see in the movie is your first impression of the film. So what do you think, is an establishing shot a good way to give you your first impression of the film?
I just think an opening shot could mean so much more. I mean, this movie starts off with this big VHS theme, which like in Cry Macho, they straight up told you what year it was. But by giving us the VHS tape, we kind of know like the time period it’s in. And I feel like that, like you can tell that she’s a doctor and she’s in her office because she has all the books in the background. Just with that you would know that this is taking place in the hospital, we don’t need to see the hospital. So maybe the opening shot could have started with just the tape.
Malignant’s Dumb Opening Scene
But as the doctor is telling us about her latest patient, something’s happening and she goes running off and she’s heading towards one of the offices or wherever the patient is. And this male guy, I forget if he’s a nurse or a doctor, he’s, he’s running, he’s running and then he bumps into our doctor here. And he just stops and starts talking to her. I’m like, “Did you not see her until you bumped into her?” You would think “Oh, maybe this malignant thing. The Gabriel who ends up being like the antagonist in this movie, somehow blocked his vision.”
I don’t know it was a bad way to start off the film, like if you’re talking about first impressions. This guy is just running down the hallway and doesn’t see the doctor till he hits her. And then he’s like, “Oh, this is who I need to talk to?”
And then just a few seconds later, somebody busts out of the room, and they fall on the floor dead. And then you see like two reaction shots from like the doctor and some other person or it-it takes a while to get to the nurse who’s just standing there waiting for the camera to turn on to her to scream. At least you could give an L-cut where you hear the screaming and then it cuts to her. But it seemed kind of silly that this guy just died in front of her and she’s like looking at him for two or three seconds and then decides the scream.
Oh, and then there was one of the doctors or whoever had a rifle, a tranquilizer rifle. And he’s gonna go in and put down whatever this beast or whatever is killing all these people. And he’s got all these people around him that can open the door for him. But they’re leaving him to open the door as well and I know he – I don’t think he’s professionally trained and tranquilizers or he’s done military or police training and how to enter and clear a room. But if this supernatural supposed beast is in this room, I’m not gonna take my hand off the trigger. I mean, I, that’s just me.
So yeah, Mr. Adam Frazier. See he prepped me for this. And sometimes that’s good to be prepped. Because instead of being like, “Oh, what the F!” I was just like, “Okay, this is what I was expecting.”
Introduction of Maddie and One of the Worst People Ever
So after the whole, you know, shock intro, we go to Maddie who just got home from work. She’s with her husband, her husband’s like a deadbeat, who doesn’t really do anything. He’s just yelling at her “Why are you working?!”
And I’m like, “Why are you letting her work?” She’s obviously about to pop. And he gets angry at her and he throws her up against the wall in her head hits the back of the wall, and blood shoots out. And he’s like, immediately sorry, and I’m like, I don’t think you will. I don’t think this is the first time this has happened. But I don’t think you’re really sorry.
Now if there ever was a worst character in film history, I want to film easily as a top competitor would be Sydney, Maddie’s sister, this girl, how does she have a-First off, she has a really nice car for somebody who is able just to drop auditions to hang out with her sister. And who is able to make somehow a living off of playing a princess at birthday parties.
Like I-like I, okay, hold on.
Luckiest Woman Alive in Malignant
She went to the Guiding Light Hospital in the dark by herself to this super creepy, abandoned hospital. Not only does she go there, but she drives her car up to literally like the cliff edge. You see the car pull up and you’re like that car is gonna fall off the cliff. Because there’s like nowhere else to park for her. Apparently, I don’t know if she just wasn’t looking where she was parking. But she would have driven another foot or two, her car would have went over the edge.
And why that path just leads up to the cliff and there’s nothing there – that was a little concerning, and she definitely should have gotten attacked or something in the hospital because nobody in any movie makes a dumb mistake like that and gets away with it.
So she gets the tapes. And she goes to her mom’s house to watch the tapes, which I thought was kind of a dumb thing to do. Why not take those tapes to-I mean, I guess maybe the mom had more insight in them, so I get it. But then when she left her mom’s house, she waited to get back into Seattle before she called the detective.
And he like I was based at Fort Lewis up there. I’ve been to Seattle quite a bit. And their mom lived somewhere kind of remote because it was – that when they pulled up to her house, there was like a clearing. And I don’t think there’s any clearing like that anywhere near Seattle. Like you’re gonna have to go miles and miles to find something like that. I think-maybe not. I don’t know.
But like she waited till she was in town to call the detective. And then I don’t know where she was going. But then the detective told her something that was – I can’t remember because I haven’t. It’s been a little bit since I’ve seen the movie. But then she had to flip a U turn because she had to go to wherever Maddie was, I think. And I was just like, I Geez, I don’t know.
Malignant and High Budget, Low Intelligence
The sister really ruined this movie. And this movie had a $40 million budget and weeks after it opened up, it hasn’t even broken $30 million yet. And for a huge name in horror…to make a horror – this is a high budget horror film. He sees a huge name in horror that James Wan. And he was given all this money to spend – I don’t know why it costs $40 million, to be honest. It didn’t look anything more than a $10 million horror movie. Maybe it’s because they had to spend the money to make this…her-her twin has superpowers that are never explained.
But yeah, we could do this, Sydney.
Oh. So let’s get out of the dumbness for a minute because there was one shot that I really appreciated in this film and who knows maybe most of the budget went to it. But when Maddie was getting attacked in her house, there was a straight overhead shot of her running like up the stairs and in a room and it was like the house didn’t have a roof on it. And it was really cool looking.
I wish there could have been something actually chasing her so you could see the distance between her and whatever would have been chasing her. But it was just her running throughout and it just I hope this scene gets recreated in another movie. Hopefully not Malignant 2. But with an actual chase sequence because, you know, movies sometimes when they’re cutting and you’re like, how are they so far away? Like in Cry Macho, like, some of the car chase scenes in that movie here, like, how did they lose them?
But if you had the overhead shot, it would show you exactly how they lost them, which probably why they didn’t do an overhead shot.
Oh, yeah. And then here’s another spot about Sydney. She, she that-the house is locked, obviously, because Mattie’s panicked over everything that happened at the beginning in the movie. And Sydney decides, “Oh, I’ll just climb up to the window on the second or third floor,” whichever it was. And she’s just sitting there staring at Maddie. Maddie staring at the wall. She’s staring is Maddie. It is like tap on the window. I mean, we don’t know how long she was there. But the look on her face was just like, “Okay, well, you open up the window already.”
Like, just oh my gosh, I don’t know. This movie got too much….praise.
Malignant’s Mommy Problem
Now let’s talk about the mom. Because spoiler alert, you know, all these are spoiler alerts. But the mom is an underground tour tour guide. They’re in the underground of Seattle. She gives the tour. And then everybody leaves. She’s the last one down there. And then there’s a sound in the dark hallway of an underground supposedly haunted area. And she looks and she can’t see anything because it’s underground and it’s dark.
And she tries to turn the lights on, but they don’t come on. And then there’s another sound. And she goes, “Well, I’m gonna just walk into the darkness.” Yeah, and then she gets caught and then Malignant as well. It turns out it was Gabriel Well, I’m gonna call it Malignant.
He says, “I’m saving you for last!” At the time, you don’t know what’s the mom? But anybody who’s that dumb probably deserves it. I mean, honestly, I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve seen so many horror films. I just, why would I go into a darkness? I mean, if I worked underground there as a tour guide, I would have a flashlight on me. Just because what if the lights go out down there? I don’t know. What do I know I’m, I’m only watching these movies, not making them.
Intership, Schminternship
And then there’s one point in this movie where the detectives are like tired because they’re working on this case. And interns are everywhere. They’re kids who end up working for free because they were told that they have to if they want to move forward in life, which is wrong because somebody you should get give them something other than just knowledge otherwise, I don’t know-I don’t I…interns should be paid something because they’re actually providing a service. They’re not just learning from you. They are giving you something in return.
But why don’t these detectives-Why don’t police detectives have interns? I feel like it would be a good thing. They could like the interns could go through the everything. Well, maybe it’s because I get it. It’s private information. It’s confidential and stuff. But I mean, what about regular beat cops? I don’t see it often in all the TV shows and movies I’ve seen in cop dramas and stuff. Like if I was a cop and I wanted to be a detective, wouldn’t I like go “Hey, do you need help with this case?” I would. I don’t know if you can do that or not. I’m not a cop. I’ve never been a cop. I haven’t really researched into being a cop.
But I do know that in work environments that if you want to move up you got to try to better yourself in what way to better yourself than to actually do the job. And why don’t beat cops-regular cops are street-I don’t know what they’re called, Hey, why don’t they just go to the detectives and say, “Hey that’s you got files there on your desk you want some help going through them?”
And I get it the detectives are seem to be very touchy about their cases. But I mean if there’s all these cases out there that are unsolved, I’m gonna take all the help I could get probably and it doesn’t ever hurt to have a fresh set of eyes on your materials like a fresh set of eyes on this movie before they released it probably would have been amazing. Because why did they hire Quentin Tarantino to shoot the jail scene? That’s all I want to know. Or maybe it’s like Adam said they had not just Angelina Jolie not Keanu Reeves. Then they hired not Quentin Tarantino to film the jail scene.
Malignant’s Soundtrack
The soundtrack of this movie was alright, but I don’t know if you’ve heard of this little botched TV show/mini series that Shutter did – the shutter streaming service called Blood Machines. And it was it was a trippy little deal. They definitely, like, I don’t know why they tried to present it as a TV show.
But the big takeaway from that presentation is the soundtrack. I’ve never heard of Carpenter Brut before. And his whole this little series because there was a project that he did before Blood Machines that was kind of the precursor to Blood Machines that led to Blood Machines. And his music is, it’s a great soundtrack material. And I feel like this movie would have benefited from Carpenter Brut doing it, as part of me says it may have been too much for this movie.
Unexplained Possession Problem in Malignant and other Horrors
But I mean, why not? I mean, they have evil villain who has superpowers. And that one superpower I don’t understand, and no movie has explained it to me yet. All of these demonic possessions. Well, this isn’t a demonic possession, though. This is a cancerous twin. So it doesn’t even make more sense here because in all these demonic movies, the host, their bodies are contorted, literally 360 degrees, sometimes, all over the all the joints are bent backwards, and all this stuff is happening, and they’re puking green stuff up or whatever.
But then if the person if the demon leaves the body and the person comes back normal, they come back healthier than ever. And in this Malignant movie, because the Gabriel is on the backside of Maddie, he has to turn all of her limbs backwards so that he can move, like legitimately turn the elbows and knees backwards. And then when Maddie gets to come back, there’s nothing wrong.
And I don’t think any movie has ever explained this phenomena. They had to say, sure didn’t explain Gabriel’s ability to use technology to talk. Like, it didn’t even seem like anybody was fascinated by that in this movie, like, that’s one of the most fascinating things ever. But not in this movie.
Record Everything In a Dangerous Situation!
I have never been in a situation like that’s constant life or death, or anything like these movies portray where anything could happen at any time that could drastically change the course of my life, right? But I think if I was Maddie, and my head’s just bleeding all the time or, like after the after the husband died, I definitely would be recording at least the audio of just about everything that’s happenening – definitely a lot more video.
And this isn’t 1992 anymore where this isn’t hard to do. Everybody’s got cell phones now that can record video. At some point, you got to say, when do like especially if you’re going into like, when Sydney went to the Guiding Light hospital. I if I was ever so unfortunate to be in that position to decide that was a good idea to do, I would at least be live streaming on my phone what’s going on? That way there’s some record of something happening.
Because if there was signal if there may not have been signal, but if they’re signal, definitely live stream, any dumb thing you’re doing. That way it’s a people might call you an idiot, but at least it’s being documented. Or you could just film it. And hopefully if you get attacked, they don’t take your phone and destroy it or delete anything off of it. But like throughout this whole movie that would have been beneficial. But no, why do anything beneficial?
So we’re getting near the end of the movie, and then the tour guide who’s tied up by ropes by Malignant she realizes, “Oh, I can cut these ropes!” I mean, it didn’t really show her but that one time show I think it showed her tied up. But then it didn’t show her using the metal bracket or whatever she was on to cut the ropes and I mean, you’ve seen enough movies now I have any way where if you’re in a tied up situation, I would definitely just be working it. You know moving. I’m moving my wrist right now like back and forth slightly because I’m really good at that, apparently.
But rope is rope. Rope can be worn down over time. And I don’t know if she was doing it the whole time. But it was like, it didn’t look like she was doing it the whole time. It looked like those ropes could have been stronger and it looked like she just kind of figured it out.
A BLM Wet Dream
And the BLM had a wet dream scene in this movie when Malignant was in the state cop station-Police Station. And Malignant going around and just killing all these cops. These cops apparently took no firearms training because they can’t hit nothing.
By the way this police station had the nicest bathroom I had ever seen in a police station. I have never seen a bad-Not that I’ve been in a lot of police stations. I’ve only been to a couple for fingerprinting purposes, but I’ve never seen one nearly as nice as this bathroom. And Hollywood – You preach about environmentalism I am totally on board with a character living up to the character’s abilities like their good traits but she left the water running in the sink. You’re teaching people it’s okay to leave the water running in the sink. Anyway that’s just me being stupid.
But I mean Gabriel at the end before he left the whole via-the whole massacre that he just did in the police station, threw a chair to it hit somebody, but it didn’t kill him. And I was like, why not? Why are you gonna go that far if you’re not going to finish the job Gabriel…or Malignant?
So the final scene the climax of the movie happens in the hospital room. And there’s all sorts of stuff going on in the hospital room with Gabriel. The mom’s there. Maddie’s there. Sydney shows up. Detective Shaw shows up.
There’s big battle going on between Maddie and Gabriel. Nobody shows up to the hospital. No, Nobody. Nobody and I’m just like, “Okay Why?” I mean by the time the battle is done the scenes done, there’s not even police lights. Well I guess all the cops are dead maybe.
Another James Wan Quote from a Malignant Trailer
But it just it just I was oh my gosh, this movie was with his $40 million budget could have tested a few more audiences maybe. I looked up one thing James Juan said and like the the second trailer for this movie. They had James Juan getting interviewed. And he said, quote:
“I think audiences are starved for something that’s new and different.”
Then why are there so many sequels out there? Sequel after sequel after sequal. How many sequels has he worked on?
*Fast and the Furious
*Saw
*The Conjuring
Like, all of that’s sequels, and then your attempt at something new was a pretty standard horror movie? That didn’t even explain the new parts. Now is this going to try to go down an M Night Shyamalan route where Malignant here is some sort of super villain? And then there’s other super villains that have superpowers? And we’ll discover them in future movies which are sequels? I don’t know.
But what I do know is that I appreciate you if you listen to this whole podcast I don’t know how you did it because this movie was a little confusing to me. But if you want you can follow me on Twitter @MoviesAreDumbS or on Facebook @MoviesAreDumbSometimes or send me an email, go to anchor.fm/MoviesAreDumbSometimes leave me a voicemail to the time of this recording. Nobody’s left me any voicemails yet. So I will go ahead and probably play yours in full might have to bleep something out. Because I haven’t cursed yet on this show. So why would I start with now? So go ahead and and Stitcher, iTunes, all of them. I’m thinking on most of them anyway. Yeah, if I’m not on one, let me know I’ll try to figure out how to get on there. So until next time, remember that talking in the movie theater requires the intelligence of a toad.
Support Movies Are Dumb Sometimes!
If you enjoyed this talk on Malignant, you can follow MADS at the following podcast sites:
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/moviesaredumbsometimes
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movies-are-dumb-sometimes/id1572322020
Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/movies-are-dumb-sometimes
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy81OTQ4MWExYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==
Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/3cw8t45l
RadioPublic: https://radiopublic.com/movies-are-dumb-sometimes-G15RMl
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7xs4Y9y87mWapO6SynbbSp
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/movies-are-dumb-sometimes
Twitter @MoviesAreDumbS
Facebook @MoviesAreDumbSometimes
YouTube (Will be uploading videos again sometime in the future, so subscribe today!)
Email mads@bloafx.com
Please subscribe to my blog. Every time I get a blog post, you’ll get an email notification! It’ll be a variety of posts, so maybe you’ll learn or see something new often! Thank you for your support!
If you found this helpful or entertaining, please consider your support to BLoafX.com at the support page. Links to Amazon on this site are linked to my affiliate account with Amazon. Any link you click to Amazon that results in a purchase will generate a percentage to me.
