James Wan made a Giallo in 2021 (aka Maligma)

Ever since Dead Silence cemented itself as a formative film from the childhood when I witnessed it on free-to-air television, and soon became hooked on the modern Wan brand of horror in Insidious, I found it incredibly encouraging that he cashed in his big Aquaman payday to make his next big horror project. 

Malignant suffers from a muddled second act that leads a bit too much between the plot beats to keep it entirely engaging all the way through (common in Wan produced horror, with Conjuring 2 and most Insidious movies post 2) and has the telltale grey blue filter you’d expect from him. But that would round up the outstanding negatives in my opinion when there are just a slew of positives. 

A very engaging and dynamic camera that can only be explored through non-green screen studio lot produced genre work can seem to produce nowadays, along with a wacky enough plot and sincere enough performances to keep you sympathising for the less fortunate lets Wan explore his strengths and improve on his weaknesses. 

Extremely eager to see him do more like this and for how this percolates along the mainstream horror releases to come.