In Malignant, Madison Mitchell (played by The Mummy (2017)/Annabelle's Annabelle Wallis) keeps having visions of people being killed by the mysterious Gabriel.
This movie is a mix of good and bad stuff. First the bad. Dialogue is pretty weak, attempts at serious moments can be silly, attempts at humor can fall flat (though in fairness there's a good line here and there), and there are a couple moments where stuff needs to happen regardless of the real world logic. At least it's dumb in a "the filmmakers were trying to have fun" sort of way and not a "trying too hard to be serious or dark" sort of way which can be a far more painful viewing experience.
However, the movie has a lot of things I really dug. There are a lot of moments where things go bonkers in a good way. There are reveals you don't see coming and more importantly there is Gabriel. The trailers make him look like your traditional specter/demon haunting someone type, but that's not the case here and he's so much more. Gabriel's one of the more unique horror movie killers I've seen in a while. I want to keep things vague, but he has a very 80's feel to him like he was meant to sell toys.
Director James Wan is known for his visual, cinematic horror and he doesn't disappoint here. Unlike many of his other movies, there isn't as much emphasis creepy atmosphere, but he makes up for it with some truly impressive kills and fight-the-villain scenes. There's a chase scene in this that is simply one of the best thing's he's ever shot. His choice of sets also work; there are certain buildings that build a larger-than-life feel and also evoke the 80's.
The cast isn't able to make the weak dialogue work. However, I wouldn't say anyone here is a bad actor either.
This is hard to recommend or not. I think that many people will love the Gabriel stuff enough that it'll make up for the bad stuff. But, Gabriel may be too much for some people (like I said, this movie gets nuts) or won't be enough to make up going through the bad dialogue and less interesting points. If anything, I think this movie will definitely leave an impression on you.
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