*Potential spoilers for Malignant ahead

Malignant was released this year to the sounds of the horror community screaming “what the heck did I just watch?” in the best way possible. As a horror lover, it was thrilling to see Wan bring to life his Giallo inspired release, Malignant. Before the release of the film, Hear Us Scream was given the opportunity to discuss the film with Wan and how the film was brought to life with love, passion, and a dash of insanity. Wan returns to the director’s seat for Malignant and it’s refreshing to have him back at the helm of horror, reflecting on his love of horror, Wan says “you can take the boy out of horror, but you can't take the horror out of the boy”.

Wan is known for his unique brand of filmmaking that makes for some of the most atmospheric supernatural films seen to date. With the breakthrough films like The Conjuring, we know what to expect from Wan and his filmmaking, we know that he is going to bring to life something that gets under our skin. Malignant is no exception to this, “I think part of the reason, what I tapped into with my sort of ghostly supernatural films is that the simplest thing, like a door creaking open, and it's not like you are sleeping at night and then you close it to open it up.” Malignant has that simplicity that we have grown to love about Wan and his interpretation of the supernatural when it comes to the big screen.

This is the interpretation that really ignites Malignant into a ball of fiery horror goodness. Wan knows how to get the attention of his audience and turn up the volume to eleven. At first, we are presented with the concept of a haunted house, a concept that Wan is all too good at playing with “I’ve made objects like a doll or whatever come alive, and that's why I'm very much drawn to the hunted house sub-genre because it allows me to allows me a strong foundation to play with all those. Leans on ideas. And, um, I don't know. I think it's the more mundane things. The everyday things that make it scarier for me.” Wan’s haunted house goes from zero to a thousand within the third act and it’s within this act that the film grabs the steering wheel and janks it off onto another plane of existence. Wan has an ability to see outside of the box and confines of genre films and says that “Malignant wants to break outside of that box. It's a genre movie, but it's also something that wants to be very, you know, it's very punk to some degree, it kind of wants to go against the system if you will.”

Malignant is the perfect concoction of a lot of the fun elements of horror movies from the early to mid-’80s. I found myself laughing hysterically at moments throughout the film because I recognised the beauty and the insanity in the scene. There is a moment in the police station where villain Gabriel launches a chair at the police, and I couldn’t help but cackle and scream “whaaaaaatttt…..?!.” But therein lies the beauty of Malignant, the chaos that is so well blended together shines through in humour and ridiculousness. Wan referred to the film as “a genre blender… my head being that blender, they have absorbed all these things and once the juice that comes out at the other end is this movie Malignant.”

The most emphatic aspect of Malignant is the wonderful influences that Wan has drawn on to create a villain and film narrative that is so captivating to watch. As expressed in many interviews across the board, Wan has stated that he has a deep love for Giallo films, the ones that are tucked away at the back of your local Video Easy with the weird and enticing cover art. Wan says that he has “harboured the desire to make a Giallo film for a long time… when this story came along, to me it felt like a perfect marriage… the perfect James Wan marriage of what a Giallio movie would be because I didn’t want to do a traditional Giallo film.” The greatest part of Malignant is that whilst it has drawn inspiration from Argento, Bava and De Palma, it has been twisted into the perfect Wan representation of a modern Giallo.

When it comes to supernatural villains, Gabriel launched themselves into my stratosphere with absolute pleasure. Watching a modern interpretation of a Giallo villain was so much fun and I loved every moment we spend with Gabriel. The last 30 minutes of the film had me in the throws of some of the best-choreographed action and fight scenes that I have seen in a long while. As a fan of the action genre and especially ones with great fight scenes, there is a fight scene in a jail cell that had me with my jaw dropped wide open with sheer admiration. When asked about Gabriel, Wan said that “how scary would it be to see something that is real quote-unquote real, but everything it does, is it backwards?... It moves backwards. And like literally, you know, he lives on the back of someone's head and he comes out of it, takes over her body and he becomes his own entity.” It was that concept that really got me so riled up about Gabriel as a villain, it’s dark, twisted and so creepy… that I loved it.

Although Maliglnant was due for release in Australia earlier in the year, the pandemic held it back from a theatrical release until October 21st. Whilst the film wasn’t in production throughout the pandemic, the post-production was a retrospective time for Wan as he looked over the film. Reflecting on the process, Wan says that the pandemic allowed him “time away from the film where I could come back and reassess the film and then kind of go, oh, you know what?... I think I'm showing too much here or I'm giving my cards up straight away... I think the movie is a buildup towards this crazy third climax. I should really hold certain things back.” After watching Malignant the first time, I feel that Wan’s personal touches to the film managed to hold those cards close to his chest so that we could be blown away by the third act.

To be honest, I am incredibly biased when it comes to Malignant, being able to watch an Australian horror movie filmmaker create such a beautiful and insane piece of cinema is inspiring. Being a bystander, watching James Wan develop into an influential filmmaker has been an absolute privilege, it gives me hope as a small-town Australian horror lover… maybe we Aussie’s are able to make an impact in the horror world.

Interview: Malignant Director James Wan

Interview with author Michael Aronovitz

Interview with filmmaker Emily Hagins