9/17/21

Malignant 2: Taken Aback by Terror


Insert other back puns here.  Look, I'm going to spoil Malignant.  I would love to write about it without yielding to the ruddy, lethiferous elephant in the room, but that would only result in an angry tusker flinging a power chair through the fourth dimension.  And that...doesn't make sense.  Booyah!  Malignant doesn't make a lot of sense.  I don't have time right now to deliver a proper review, but I did feel compelled to jot down a couple of musings.

The obvious point of reference is Basket Case.  I've seen so many fans call the film's villain a conjoined twin.  No, no, no.  Doctors explain that "Gabriel" is a teratoma, a cancerous tumor.  How this growth drinks electricity and throws his voice to FM speakers is anyone's best guess.  By the way, I didn't realize that it was commonplace for families to listen to FM radio.  Then again, I wasn't checking out Malignant for a sense of realism.

It's incredible that this Grindhouse-with-a-budget reel made it to theaters at all.  Don't take a viscous curveball for granted.  Malignant is troubled, but it feels fresh in a landscape choking on its own riskless, generic self.  I don't think it was produced as a prank; rather, I think James Wan attempted to craft a mindless monster flick in the same vein as Basket Case or Castle Freak.  Eh, I wish I could type more on Wan's resume.  Maybe in the future?  Let's do lunch?

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