If I were to draw a line on a graph showing my enjoyment of this flick, it would start low and waver up and down, mostly down, for the first half. And then it’d shoot up up and up. Ask me in the first act if I’d give this a good score, I’d have said hell no. Ask me as the credit rolled, I’d shake my head ruefully and admit that the movie tricked me and showed me something unique.

Malignant is about more than this description but its back-of-the-box is about a woman who is seeing murders of strangers during waking dreams. She doesn’t know who (or what) the killer is nor does she know why she’s suddenly connected to it.

If I say much more, I risk spoiling the fun and nuts turns this film takes. I will say this much though: this film is very derivative of a lot of other horror films. Even that description above is hardly original… plenty of movies out there with a character having visions or dreams of a killer. And the wild twist the movie makes is also derivative of other (more underground) films. But what it ultimately does with its ideas is pretty creative. And nuts.

The film is directed by James Wan who makes plenty of horror movies but also some action flicks. The best surprise in this film is that he uses both sides of his experience in this one film. There is a killer in this flick and he/she/it gets some nutso fight/action scenes that bring all the FX work Wan has under his belt from the Fast movies and Aquaman. Just saying there are scenes that reminded me of Aquaman in this seemingly generic ghost story does not compute.

The killer in this flick has a good chance of becoming an iconic movie monster. It moves in mysterious ways and has a talent set that’s often surprisingly agile. There’s one chase scene where a cop is running the killer down and we get surprise parkour demon. And I never thought I’d type those words.

So… this movie is just wild and nuts, extremely gory, with a weird soundtrack that I loved. I was kind of amazed at how crazy it was cheerfully going. During the whole final act, I was nodding my head… good job movie. You tricked me into thinking I was watching one movie and then you give me this. Good job on the ol’ rope-a-dope.

Score: 85