Director Report Card: James Wan (2023)

11. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

I, as an average citizen, should know nothing about the business side of Hollywood. The names of entertainment company CEOs, ideally, would remain complete mysteries to me. I'm here for the art, man, not to learn about stock numbers. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world which means I know who David Zaslav is. Warner Brothers' 2022 merger with Discovery Media and Zaslav's appointment to the corporation's throne seems to have thrown things into chaos. WB's attempt to build their own superhero cinematic universe to rival Disney/Marvel's became a load-bearing wall in the company's existence, despite the series always trailing behind their direct competition. James Wan's "Aquaman" had been one of the few unarguable hits of the DC Extended Universe, which obviously meant a sequel immediately went into production. Zaslav, however, pinned the entire future of the franchise on "The Flash," the kind of behind-the-scenes fiascos that books are written about. (Following "Justice League," already an example of an equally staggering production clusterfuck.) By the time "Aquaman 2" made it to theaters, "The Flash" had bombed to such a degree that an entire reboot of the cinematic DC Universe was already announced. This meant "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" was the dying gasps of a failed endeavor, the unintentionally final chapter in an attempt to build an international brand. That's not the only reason the sequel failed to repeat the original's billion dollar success. Many other factors were involved in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" being the latest victim of superhero fatigue. Few of them where the fault of James Wan and the rest of the creative team. As a genuine fan of Aquaman as a comic book character, let me attempt to autopsy what the sequel got right, what it did wrong, and why it failed to resonate with a public that ate up the first one. 

Since defeating his brother and ascending to the throne of Atlantis, Arthur Curry's life has changed considerably. He's taken Mera as his queen and beget a son, Arthur Jr. Balancing the duties of fatherhood, ruling a kingdom, and being a head-smashing oceanic superhero has been difficult though. As a global climate crisis cripples Atlantis, Arthur is faced with an old foe returning. Black Manta, still determined to take revenge on Aquaman, has acquired an ancient black trident. The weapon is possessed by the spirit of Kordax, the inhuman king of a cursed Atlantean kingdom that was imprisoned in Arctic ice centuries ago. Kordax is using Manta's hunger for revenge to burn Orichalcum, a powerful fuel source with disastrous effects on the environment, to free himself and his army. Arthur seeks out the help of an unexpected source to stop Black Manta's destructive quest: His brother Orm, the Ocean Master. The two will have to overcome their legendary sibling rivalry if they hope to save the world. 

Much of the first "Aquaman's" success, I suspect, can be attributed to the public's love of Jason Momoa's goofy dude-bro persona. Momoa's sex appeal and charm turned a character probably regarded as a joke by many into a huge moneymaker. Not unreasonably, Momoa was given more control over the sequel, first pitching an idea for a follow-up during production of the original. This means "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" features far more of Momoa's silly machismo. He begins the film with a monologue about how boring he finds his kingly duties and how much more he'd rather be fighting bad guys. The subsequent action scene is scored to "Born to Be Wild," among the most obvious of dad rock needle drops. Throughout the sequel, he extols the virtues of cheeseburgers, beer, and fist fights. Now that Aquaman is a dad, the sequel turns Arthur Curry into more of a meat-headed tough guy with a heart of gold that loves his son. It removes the cinematic Aquaman further from the complex character he is on the page while also showing the limits of Momoa's charms. He's amusing when doing the cartoonish surfer guy angle but the sequel is unable to add much more depth. Momoa and Arthur Curry with him becomes a more two-dimensional – and perhaps annoying at times –  caricature. 

This goes hand-in-hand with an overall goofier tone. There are multiple jokes throughout the first ten minutes about Arthur Jr. peeing in his dad's face. The image of an infant telepathically communicating via psychic waves emanating from his head crops up a few times. Topo the Octopus played the drums in one scene in the first "Aquaman," an in-joke that became an internet meme. Now Topo has graduated to a proper supporting player, leading to the hero dismissively making rude comments to the squishy cephalopod. John Rhys Davis as the Brine King, the odd crab humanoid, is given a larger role too while Storm the giant seahorse also gets the spotlight for a sequence. Arthur tricking his brother into eating a cockroach is a running gag. All of this and more contributes to a far sillier, jokier tone. Wan's first "Aquaman" didn't take itself that seriously and it was a license for the film to embrace a delightful, imaginative looseness. The sequel doubles down on the silly without raising the amusement and imagination much, making the limitations of this approach much more evident.

James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick supposedly took inspiration from the Silver Age era of comics when writing “The Lost Kingdom.” This is fitting, as that was the era when Aquaman became one of the few superheroes to be an active family man. During that time, Mera would often accompany him on his adventures, Aqualad and Aquagirl became part of the team, and even Arthur Jr. was sometimes involved in the shenanigans under the name Aquababy. This era would come to a definitive end with issue #452 of “Adventure Comics,” published in August of 1977. That is when Black Manta murdered Arthur's toddler son, in what is surely one of the darkest events in superhero comics up to that point. It's a notorious story and one the sequel hints at, with Black Manta abducting the child in the last third. All throughout production, the question of whether “Aquaman 2” would go that far floated over it. That would certainly distinguish the film from the rest of the superhero lot.

Unsurprisingly, this light-hearted superhero adventure does not climax with infanticide. Unwilling to murder a baby, the sequel instead attempts to emphasize the theme of family. Mera getting injured by Black Manta is what drives him on this mission. His dad and mother get larger roles, with the plot eventually bending towards the two brothers learning to forgive each other. It's a nice idea but it proves to be an element more informed than depicted. Amber Heard somehow became the center point of right-wing hatred after she sued her alcoholic ex-husband with a history of erratic behavior. How exactly this effected the production of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” remains largely within the realm of tabloid gossip. However, we do know that Amber Heard's role in the film was reduced during reshoots. Mera is practically a non-entity throughout long stretches of the film. Meanwhile, it's tricky to fight crime with a baby strapped to your back, meaning Arthur Jr. spends a lot of time with his granddad. Ultimately, it's hard to take the movie's claims of being about a love of family when it intentionally forces the hero apart from his wife and son for long stretches of its runtime. 

Superhero movies being subjected to extensive re-shoots and essentially rewritten in the editing room has become standard practice over the last decade. You might go so far as to call it the Marvel Method. While we can only speculate exactly on how “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was re-shuffled after filming, the effect is undeniably felt. The sequel is overly burdened with exposition and back-story all throughout. Concepts – like the nature of the desert prison Orm is kept in or this mysterious fuel source Manta is exploiting – are sloppily introduced in voice-over during visual montages. Seemingly important plot points, like a plague sweeping through Atlantis and killing Willem DaFoe's Vulko, are relegated to easily missed lines of dialogue. The worst example of this occurs in the last third. The entire backstory of Kordax and the Lost Kingdom – otherwise known as the thing that gives the sequel its subtitle – is delivered in one massive exposition dump with less than an hour to go. The impression that the film had a litany of ideas and concepts to introduce, but no organic way to set them up in the narrative, occurs throughout all of “Aquaman 2.”

These are not the only ideas in “The Lost Kingdom” that seem like they are going to be important but are abandoned quickly. The opening montage suggests that weary is the head that wears the crown, Arthur finding himself ill-suited to being royalty. This is a frequent theme in the “Aquaman” comics and seems like it's going to add additional tension to the sequel's story. Arthur busting Orm out of jail potentially makes him a traitor to his own state. Instead, this idea never really builds to anything. Similarly, earlier scenes also suggest that Atlantis revealing itself to the surface is going to be a major plot thread throughout. It's not, being mentioned in this early sequence and coming back for the final sequence, but never actually being incorporated into the plot. All of this suggests that many different ideas were floated for “Aquaman 2,” some of them being incorporated into different drafts and cuts of the film, and the final result is a compromised combination of all of them.

In other words, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is a bit of a mess, clearly at the mercy of behind-the-scenes studio politics and endless re-structuring in post-production. Despite that, the movie still managed to entertain me. Once Arthur and Orm are teamed-up, the sequel becomes a rather entertaining movie in the buddy cop mold. Two guys who don't like each other, for reasons perhaps more personal than usual, are forced together on an adventure. During this wild journey, they will learn to respect each other and maybe love each other too. Watching that play out, with recovering villain Orm proving himself or Arthur risking his neck for the guy, is the smoothest element of the script. Moreover, the chemistry between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson provides a lot of pep to the second half. Momoa, in full-on goofy surfer dude mode, plays nicely off Wilson as the humorless Orm. That the brothers literally come from different words, and have totally different perspectives on everything, makes their dynamic juicier. When the sequel doesn't let its own overdone script get in its way, and focuses on the spark between these two, is when it manages to be most amusing.

Something that made the first “Aquaman” a lot better than expected was James Wan fully embracing the Saturday morning cartoon nuttiness of the material. While the sequel is probably too goofy overall, you can tell that the director is having a great time playing around with this mega-sized budget. Wan's loyalty to New Line Cinema meant he never got the call from Disney to work on a “Star Wars.” No matter, because Wan simply makes an underwater “Star Wars” here. A battle through the transportation tubes of Atlantis, an elaborate CGI dog-fight with high-tech vehicles patterned after various aquatic animals, brings the trench run of George Lucas' space opera to mind. The influence becomes impossible to deny once Arthur and Orm visit a seedy hang-out for pirates. Full of bizarre aquatic creatures, a colorful band of inhuman singers, and a corpulent and monstrous crime boss at the center, it's a moment clearly evocative of Mos Eisley and Jabba's palace. Both of these scenes are a lot of fun too, featuring creative applications of the underwater setting and more moments of the heroes reacting to the strange shit around them.

“Star Wars” is not the only influence that Wan wears on his sleeve here. Black Manta's base of operation is a secluded volcanic island. The burning of Orichalcum has mutated the local flora and fauna. Which means Arthur and Orm have to run through an island gauntlet of giant killer bugs and man-eating plants. Yes, Wan is allowed to get a little "King Kong" into this brew. The homage is made obvious when the two brothers have to run across a statue precariously balanced between a massive gorge. Putting some enormous, flesh-eating locusts and giant carnivorous plants in your pulpy adventure story is a great way to win me over. Moreover, this represents "The Lost Kingdom" at its most fast-paced and fleet-footed, getting laughs and thrills out of this mismatched pair running from and outsmarting some king-sized beasties. Presumably the script for "Aquaman 2" being so overloaded is why the film didn't go the extra mile and make the setting Dinosaur Island, to further the "Kong" connection.

Among the influences James Wan actually pointed out was Mario Bava's “Planet of the Vampires.” I suppose this is evident in the sequences of old, undead monsters being awoken from an ancient sleep. The finale of Kordax and his army of undead warriors is the most obvious example of Wan sneaking his horror influence into his superhero sequel. Black-boned skeletons, shrouded in green-burning fire, and wielding medieval weapons is something that could fit on a heavy metal album cover. These zombie-like elements are mixed with tentacles creatures emerging from the deep, which brings certain Lovecraftian vibes to the material. Probably my favorite horror-esque touch are those blood-drinking, skeletal warriors living in the desert and running around on bizarre, reptilian monster steeds. That was cool.

That's what sticks in my mind about “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” As a comic book, action movie spectacle, it still delivers some impressive moments. The desert chase concludes with Orm emerging from the beach, Patrick Wilson's rippling pectorals returned, and an impressive melee fighting. A battle in Black Manta's base with a huge, robotic octopus vehicle features a massive anchor on a chain being swung around, a dynamic prop. When Arthur and Black Manta finally go toe-to-toe in the last act, after a whole movie building up their confrontation, the resulting fight scene features some smooth, clever camera movements as the weapons swing through the air. These moments remind us that these movies are based on comic books, of striking images strung together panel by panel.

That the action scenes are exciting are nice. However, the sequel seems to lack a convincing villain. “The Lost Kingdom” redeems Ocean Master, Patrick Wilson allowed to turn the over-the-top bad guy of the first movie into someone more sympathetic. That means Black Manta, now established as Arthur's arch-nemesis with a potent grudge, should rise to the role of proper antagonist, right? Yahya Abdul-Mateen II remains incredibly intense throughout the part, almost comically so. He is bathed with a layer of sweat in every scene, his eyes always wide as he remains utterly focused on destroying his foe. And Manta does drive the plot... By being pushed around by the ancient spirit of Kordax. The villain spends the whole obsessing with Aquaman but doesn't actually confront him until the finale. The result is that the film's antagonist feels like a flunky for an eldritch entity. Who, by the way, is defeated in a hugely anticlimactic fashion. Ultimately, try as the film might, it can't make Aquaman's comic book adversaries – whether it be his all-time most frequent enemy or the green-skinned, blonde, one-armed, accursed prince – into truly memorable characters. 

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” also includes a moral about global warming. Out of control climate change is melting the polar ice caps, creating increasingly erratic weather patterns, and causing disease to spread among the Atlanteans. This is an important element to cook into your mass-appeal blockbuster, since climate change is a very real threat to all of us here in the real world. Unfortunately, there's a reason fantasy stories like this were not meant to directly address real world issues. Because the polar ice caps melting, in the DC Universe, isn't bad because it'll flood coastlines and lead to the deaths and displacements of millions... It's because it'll unleash an ancient evil. Similarly, the ice caps aren't melting because unchecked corporate greed keeps the majority of the globe dependent on fossil fuels. It's because a high-tech pirate is burning an ancient super-fuel that was locked away centuries before. The result comes off as good-intentioned but hopelessly clumsy. The moral is twisted, making real world evil an accessory to comic book supervillainy. 

The overall reaction to “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” seems to have been a negative one. Many seem to agree that the sequel strayed too far into its own goofiness. The controversary around Amber Heard – a manufactured attempt to disparage a woman leaving an abusive marriage, in my opinion – nevertheless stained the sequel's reputation. A vocal minority of embittered fanboys were still stung about Zack Snyder's miserabilist vision of the DC Universe being tossed aside. A combination of oversaturation and the extended pause of the COVID pandemic changing the world's priorities ended the era of superhero movies dominating our pop culture, it would seem. All these factors combined to prevent “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” from being a hit on the scale of the first. It's a deeply compromised, incredibly uneven movie, that probably was never meant to support the stakes placed on it. That doesn't mean there isn't some fun to be had here. Jason Momoa has hung up his trident, next scheduled to play intentionally ridiculous space biker Lobo, the DC character he probably should've been cast as from the get-go. His tenure as Aquaman – it remains to be seen if another actor will ever fill the green and orange tights – represents an interesting, sporadically fun attempt to turn the much malign superhero into a global phenomenon. [Grade: B-]

Among Wan's unrealized projects was a spin-off of “Aquman” centering on The Trench, the man-like fish monsters that popped up in a few scenes in the first movie. That shows the director's interest in horror stories about humanoids from the deep. That fascination seemed destined to climax with Wan directing a remake of “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” as part of Universal's latest attempt to retrofit their classic monster characters for the modern age. He's also working on a feature adaptation of Lovecraft's “The Call of Cthulhu,” further suggesting that gilled horrors from beyond the briny deep are on his mind lately. It's been about a year since we've heard any updates on either of those projects, so who knows if they'll make it to the screen. Until then, Wan is staying busy as a producer, shepherding other franchises and filmmakers through his Atomic Monster studio. I think Wan is mixed talent, having made some movies I liked and some I didn't care for much at all, but he's certainly a more distinctive filmmaker than I previously gave him credit for. I hope whatever he makes next is closer in tone to “Malignant” than “The Conjuring 2.”

RECENT WATCHES: Saw X (2023)

Since ostensibly bringing the series to an end with 2010's “Saw 3D,” Lionsgate had made two attempts to rebirth the grisly horror cash-cow that kept the lights on all throughout the George W. Bush administration. While neither “Jigsaw” nor “Spiral” failed exactly, they also weren't greeted with much enthusiasm. Still, when a series has been as profitable as this one, producers aren't willing to give up so easily. Returning to an idea Mark Burg and Oren Koules had before Chris Rock intervened, “Saw X” would be designed as a throwback to the series' roots. Neither a reinvention nor a legacy sequel, the film would instead focus on John “Jigsaw” Kramer as a protagonist. Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg were back on scripting duties with Kevin Greutert in the director's chair again, the former editor now established as the new Darren Lynn Bousman. I guess, by 2023, enough time had passed to make people nostalgic for what they liked about “Saw” in the first place. Somehow, the tenth installment in this long running blood-and-guts show ended up being the best reviewed “Saw” thus far and the first in a while to truly resonate with fans.

Set after the events of the first “Saw” but before any of the sequels, the story focuses on John Kramer, his terminal brain cancer leaving him only months to plan and design his elaborate games of ironic punishment. At a support group, he's told of an experimental treatment that might cure his disease. He flies to Mexico City and cashes out his entire bank account to Dr. Cecilia Pederson. He is told the surgery has cured him totally. Afterwards, upon returning to give a gift to the team he's so thankful for, he discovers the entire operation has been a hoax. He is still dying of cancer, just a lot poorer now. He once again recruits Amanda Young to help him orchestrate his most personal game yet. Cecilia Pederson and her team of swindlers – a bogus anesthesiologist, nurse, surgeon, and prior “patient” – awaken in the same abandoned building that acted as their phony operating theater. They are put through bloody, brutal trials to prove they are still worthy to live despite their crimes, John and Amanda arguing about the ethics of what they are doing and his mortality all the while. However, not every thing goes according to plan.

While watching my way through the “Saw” series, I've reflected on the probably unavoidable cycle of the reoccurring villain of a horror franchise slowly becoming its hero. While Michael Myers, Chucky, and the rest of the modern monster Mount Rushmore have long been the star attractions of their respective films, most series are reluctant to totally turn their deranged mass murderers into full-on heroes. Considering “Saw” was originally founded on its criminal mastermind being an especially vicious and sadistic bastard, you'd think it would be hard to redeem Jigsaw. Except that's exactly what the sequels did, slowly convincing audiences that John Kramer was actually justified in the insane shit he did, at least in comparison to his pettier apprentices. The moral integrity of this is highly debatable but it did acknowledge something unavoidable: Jigsaw was and always has been the most interesting character in these movies. His weirdo bond with Amanda was an especially fruitful, and still largely unexplored, element. 

With “Saw X,” the franchise dispenses with all pretenses and turns Jigsaw into a hero really no more brutal than Liam Neeson in "Taken" or Denzel Washington in "The Equalizer." In order to characterize someone who routinely makes “games” of forcing people to savagely mutilate themselves into a protagonist, the script cooks up a group of cartoonishly evil villains. The crooks that end up in these traps have built a convoluted con job around robbing the sick and dying of their last bits of cash, all while giving them false hope. If “Saw VI” mined some vicarious thrills by turning its tortures on health insurance company stooges, “Saw X” does the same thing with a far more preposterous band of heartless thieves. Synnøve Macody Lund plays Cecilia Pederson as the most selfish, conniving person imaginable. In every line of dialogue, you can see her operating in a strictly self-interested, ruthless fashion. Most of her cohorts are similarly opportunistic, caring not at all about the desperate, already doomed people they are ripping off. They are characters so vile and ethically vacant that you easily root for John Kramer to cut them up. I kind of doubt that such a scam would actually be profitable in real life and setting it in Mexico City brings some unsightly racial connotations to mind. However, I will say that “Saw X” successfully creates some suitably despicable rivals to Jigsaw's machinations.

Another side effect of watching all the “Saw” movies is realizing that Jigsaw's modus operandi isn't exactly coherent. In the original movie, he was forcing people through tests to prove they valued their lives. By the third installment, this changed to his victims being sent through elaborate trials to make murky moralistic points, a formula most of the other sequels stuck to. John Kramer did a shit load of revenge and vigilante justice in there too, often targeting people who had wronged him, dirty cops, or other scumbags along the way. “Saw X” doesn't truly address the wild inconsistencies in Kramer's philosophy. The main sticking point of his game is that his victims, no matter how rotten they are, always have a chance to escape. I guess the idea is that everyone deserves redemption and a second chance, contrasting against Amanda's insistence that some assholes should die. Which doesn't really seem to track with literally all of Jigsaw's other brutal actions and apparent sadism. At one point, the script has the gamemaster describing himself as a life coach of sorts. It's such a ridiculous hypocrisy, that someone fascinated with putting people in complex torture devices is depicted as having the moral high ground. I guess that is the pitch black world "Saw" inhabits. 

Then again, maybe that was a deliberate move on the script's behalf, to make Jigsaw more sympathetic. Don't think too hard about the ethics of this horror movie villain now being our hero, you guys. What “Saw X” truly does is provide a proper starring vehicle for Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith. This is a compelling idea. Bell's gravelly, weirdly sincere take on this ridiculous character has always made John Kramer a lot more nuanced than the material around him. He carries a bereaved sadness throughout paired with a righteous anger, showing a frustration with his imminent death and the cynicism of most people. This peaks during a monologue where he admits to Amanda that his death is inevitable and she'll have to grapple with that. The timeline dictates that this story is set shortly after the original but Shawnee Smith is obviously twenty years older, her voice noticeably deeper. This actually pairs well with Amanda's status as a recovering junkie, thoroughly traumatized, and sharing a co-dependent relationship with a quasi-serial killer. Smith plays Amanda as far more haunted and barely clinging to functionality than in previous films. I wish the script focused on that more, on the weirdness in this two-person cult they've got going on. Acknowledging that Amanda is clearly being manipulated by a maniac would run counter to the strictly pro-Jigsaw viewpoint of the sequel. By the end, these two have developed into misfits – yes, really! – against a wicked world, somehow emerging as the most decent characters in the film. In other words, after ten movies, the "Saw" movies have finally convinced me that Jigsaw is a pretty cool guy. 

The jagged aesthetic of the original run of “Saw” movies – their ooze green lighting, grungy settings, caffeinated editing – trademarked the series as an obvious product of the Nu-Metal era of pop culture. By the time we got to “Saw 3D,” this was already looking out-of-date and the subsequent reboots have run from that approach. "Saw X" nods at these hallmarks. When imagining a trap for a hospital janitor with seemingly sticky fingers, the cinematography jerks all around. It happens once or twice after that, strictly as nods to franchise history. However, this tenth entry goes for an overall subtler approach, though no less grim looking. Charlie Clouser's score is also a little less bombastic than usual too, while still featuring the themes fans have come to expect. In general, you can tell an amount of effort was taken to make "Saw X" a little more like a traditional drama and a little less like an in-your-face horror show. This is further evident in the smaller role for Billy the Puppet, though he still gets a big entrance. 

Which isn't to say that the film doesn't pack in the sickening gore. By reeling in the detachment of the edgy visuals, the violence has become a lot more disturbing. In the twenty years since the moral panic over "torture porn," actual sickening footage of war, accidents, suicide, and murders have proliferated across the internet. You can tell Greutert and his team applied some of that hyper-realism here. The blood is darker, the sinew rawer, the flesh and muscle more convincing. The sound design is bracing. When fingers are snapped, it's with a sickening crack. When a leg is sliced off at the thigh with a Gigli saw, the hollow thud of the severed limb hitting the floor is puke-tastic. The sequel's most extreme moment involves a bound man ripping out a bit of his own brain matter. If the goal was to make even hardened horror fans flinch, "Saw X" succeeds. Whether all this extreme violence means anything is debatable. The script draws parallels between Jigsaw's torture and the ancient Aztec ritual of human sacrifices. Kramer himself is forced into his own game, which sees him waterboarded with blood. If this is some attempt to bring the original's accidental subtext on the War on Terror full circle? If so, I don't see a cognizant point there. 

Considering "Saw X" – I can't help but pronounce that as the letter, not the number – is fully on Kramer's side, maybe we aren't meant to feel any sympathy for his victims. Jigsaw is our friend now. We enjoy spending time with him and watching the relentlessly clever special effects unfold. I have no problem with rooting for the monster but make it make sense within the film's universe. Some passing mention of the innocent people that died, or the survivors left scarred and traumatized for life, during Jigsaw's past and future trials would've been nice. At the same time, "Saw X" is easily the best sequel in the entire series, maybe the best "Saw" movie period. It achieves this simply by shifting the focus to Bell and Smith and having assured direction and a concise script. Though there's still a twist ending of sorts, which is a non-event, and a shout-out to that other Jigsaw. (Not anyone from the other reboots though, which this one has no interest in acknowledging.) Inter-producer squabbling seems to have derailed production of "Saw XI." Considering Tobin Bell is 82 years old, it's hard to say if he has another starring role in him anyway. If this ends up being the final "Saw" – extremely unlikely, I know – at least the series went out on a highpoint. "Saw X" makes no argument for the fucked-up moral relativity of these films but it is a brutally efficient gore-fest. [7/10] 

RECENT WATCHES: The Nun II (2023)

One assumes that the lightbulb moment for "The Conjuring" cinematic universe occurred when James Wan or Peter Safran or whoever read about the Warrens' museum of cursed artifacts. Here was a whole room filled with spooky doodads, each one with a creepy origin story of their own, worthy of a horror movie or two. This is the blue print "Annabelle" followed, which the third film built extensively on. Weirdly though, the second series spun out of "The Conjuring" was entirely invented by Hollywood screenwriters, taking no inspiration from the Warrens' haunted knickknacks at all. (This might be because the real Warrens' Occult Museum is mostly filled with Halloween decorations and other shit you can buy off Amazon.) There was never an ominous painting of a demonic nun in Ed and Lorraine's shed. However, "The Nun" made over 300 million worldwide on a 22 million dollar budget, so there was no way we weren't getting a sequel. "The Nun II" arrived five years after the original, probably only taking that long because of the pandemic. I can't imagine the search for a director added to the delay. Michael Chaves would stick with the franchise that had been so good to him, moving from Weeping Women and the Warrens themselves to Bonnie Aarons' snaggle-toothed sinister sister. 

It is 1956. Four years have passed since the demon Valak was seemingly re-sealed under Saint Cartha's Monastery with the blood of Christ. Sister Irene now resides at a convent in Italy, her achievement already passing into legend but her role in it kept a secret. Maurice is working as a gardener at a French boarding school, befriending a bullied young girl named Sophie. A series of bizarre killings, targeting the clergy, have begun across Europe. Irene, with her inexperienced sidekick Sister Debra, is tasked with unraveling the mystery. She soon deduces that Valak escaped its prison by possessing Maurice's body. The demon is targeting the descendants of Saint Lucia, the fire-proof virgin whose eyes were gouged out by Roman pagans during the third century. These eyes are said to reside in a French monastery, the building now being a school... The same school Maurice is working at. Irene and Debra head to France to confront Valak, still in the form of a grotesque nun, once again. 

Corin Hardy's "The Nun" managed to mine considerable ambiance out of its old world setting. "The Nun II" trades Romania for Italy and France but still pulls off a similar trick. I suppose a horror movie setting much of its action in dusty old corridors, shadowy stone ruins, and obscure cellars goes a long way towards winning me over. The locked-off portion of the school, still surviving from the monastery days, features a creepy stained glass window that sets up two amusingly atmospheric sequences. A chase through the cobblestone back allies of France is also decently pulled off. Chaves' sequel doesn't draw as much from classic EuroHorror as the original but setting the movie partly in Italy is still a nod towards its most obvious influences. A scene where school girls trade stories about creepy sounds above their bunks is right out of "Suspiria." There's a smattering of that Argento energy here, when the Nun is stalking her victims. I also suspect Michele Soavi's "The Church" might have been on someone's mind while making "The Nun II." The old world scenery and increasingly grotesque horrors – which starts with a Catholic priest bursting into flames and elevate from there – recall that one a little. "The Nun II" isn't anywhere near as good as its inspirations but that it cribs some of those vibes at all thoroughly makes it my kind of thing. 

"The Conjuring" is a rarity among horror franchises for revolving more around its heroes than its villains. "The Nun II" follows this lead by bringing back two of the three protagonists from the last one. (Demián Bichir's Father Burke is said to have died of cholera between movies.) As a Taissa Farmiga vehicle, "The Nun II" is surprisingly successful. Having wrapped up her character arc of accepting the habit in the first one, Sister Irene now has to struggle with the weight of faith. Memories of her late mother linger in her mind and suffering seems to be all around, making her wonder about her belief in a good and loving God. Farmiga remains a pleasant lead, with a warm and lovable presence about her. She has good chemistry with Storm Reid as the far more skeptical Debra, a character who introduces some much needed incredulity to the story. Jonas Bloquet as Maurice is also a welcome return, the kindness the guy shows to the bullied Sophie instantly making him likable. Our heroes are nice and kind, an unexpected benefit in the often cynical horror genre. 

Which isn't to say "The Nun II" isn't dumb and nasty in many other ways. Bonnie Aarons' Valak is a fully minted movie monster now, the sequel giving her much more lurk-and-hurt time than her previous two appearances. In fact, "The Nun II" almost feels like a Catholicism-themed slasher flick. Symbols of churchly tradition like the Eucharist, a confessional booth, and a censer are weaponized by the demon on the way to gory murder sequences. As with his previous installments in this series, Michael Chaves packs "The Nun II" full of many loud, dumb jump scares. However, he's gotten slightly better at setting up this kind of stuff. A scene where the demon emerges from a new stand of ominously flapping magazines is very silly but in an audacious way. The last third, which features a chase across a crumbling catwalk, isn't bad either. By the end, the sequel successfully captures a feeling of fun house silliness, never actually scary but clearly having a good time tossing demonic visages and creepy crawlers at us. 

I've compared the mainline "The Conjuring" films to superhero movies, in the way they build up the Warrens as mythic do-gooders who interact with established concepts. Rather than pulling from decades of comic book back issues, these movies are inspired by the Warrens' bullshitty claims and Catholic mysticism. After uncovering a vial of the blood of Christ in the first movie, Sister Irene pursues the Eyes of St. Lucy in this one. It's a very Indiana Jones-like structure but, when the central relic is revealed, it has magical powers on-par with an Infinity Gem. The sequel includes an almost hilariously awkward exposition dump to introduce its MacGuffin. It ends in a flash of CGI light and special effects, feeling more and more like a Marvel movie as it goes along. That includes foreshadowing multiple elements in gratuitous ways. Hmm, I wonder if this lengthy conversation about transubstantiation will be important later? That's the kind of movie "The Nun II" is and it goes to show how much the ubiquity of superhero tropes have rubbed off on other genres. 

"The Nun II" made about one hundred million dollars less than its predecessor, a noticeable drop-off. With the sense of finality around the next "Conjuring" movie, it's hard to say if Valak will return to haunt Europe a third time. At the same time, the sequel still made a healthy profit and a money-making horror villain making a comeback is always plausible. I might actually like "The Nun II" a little more than the first one. Its highs are not as high but it also doesn't drop off as hard in the second half either. It's a thoroughly preposterous motion picture but an entertaining one, with a likable cast, some cozy horror ambiance, and a handful of amusingly silly scares. I guess if Catholic propaganda has to infect my beloved horror genre, it's good that the movies are at least decently engineered. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Of the three highly successful horror franchise that James Wan has had a hand in creating, “Insidious” always feels like the one that slipped through the cracks. (Or into the Further, I suppose.) The yearly “Saw” sequels defined the genre in the 2000s, birthing the torture trend of debatable merit. “The Conjuring” – which “Insidious” always felt like a prototype for – has become the highest grossing series in the genre, thanks to its web of interconnected spin-offs. Every time a new “Insidious” movie comes out, meanwhile, my reaction is always one of bemused disbelief. Maybe that's because the series became the blue print for countless other generic Blumhouse chillers, thoroughly slotting it into the “been-there-done-that” corner of my brain. Nevertheless, they make money. “Insidious: The Red Door” became a surprise hit in summer of 2023, showing that there was still an appetitive for this kind of thing even after the five year break from the last one. It became a feather in the cap of star Patrick Wilson, successfully making the transition into directing with the fifth installment. 

Last time we saw the Lambert family was in 2013's “Insidious: Chapter 2,” undergoing hypnosis to forget their traumatic experiences with the possessing spirits of the Further. It wasn't enough to save Josh and Renai's marriage, the two separating in the last decade. Dalton, the center of the paranormal activity, is now a moody teenager, leaving home to attend art school. His relationship with his dad is tense, despite the best efforts to rekindle their bond. Encouraged by his art teacher, Dalton begins to probe his reoccurring nightmares for artistic inspiration. He begins painting images of an ominous red door while experiencing increasingly frightening visions. Josh digs into his own childhood for answers, discovering that he inherited his astral abilities from his own father. Father and son will have to travel back into the Further if they hope to close the door forever.

“Insidious” has always been a series about childhood trauma, repression of bad memories, and the fear of passing your worst qualities on to your children. By returning to the Lambert family a decade after we first met them, “The Red Door” foregrounds these themes in a big way. The end of “Chapter 2" had them burying their knowledge of the Further via hypnosis which, this installment suggests, maybe wasn't the best way to handle things. Dalton and his sibling admittedly have some fucked-up childhood memories to unpack, what with their father being possessed by the ghost of a serial killer and attempting to kill them. Dalton is a young adult now, played by a now 24 year old Ty Simpkins, and such a childhood did not beget a close relationship with his dad. His parents are divorced – that feels realistic – and he's struggling to forge a relationship with a father who is clearly still processing his own traumatic youth. All of this being triggered by the death of his mom – Barbara Hershey getting a brief cameo as a photograph atop a casket – makes the ideas clearer. As you get older, your childhood fears and hang-ups don't disappear. They merely change shape.

In fact, “The Red Door” comes away feeling like a strangely personal project for Patrick Wilson. This is the first “Insidious” film not to be written solely by Leigh Whannell, Scott Teems of multiple Blumhouse reboots handling scripting duties. It still feels a little bit like a Patrick Wilson vanity project. His wife has a cameo and he duets with Ghost for the cover that plays over the end credits, for further examples of that. That so much of the story revolves around a very divorced dad struggling with reconnecting with his son, processing his mom's death, and putting his own father's legacy to bed makes me wonder if the star/director or someone else working on the sequel wasn't injecting their own issues into the material. This isn't truly an issue until the last act, when “The Red Door” starts to feel less like a horror sequel and more like an especially maudlin therapy session filtered through a genre lens. Much has been written about how pop-psychology speak has infiltrated Hollywood screenwriting. Examples like this, where characters stop to apologize for their mistakes and directly address their personality flaws, are hard not to notice.

While we might be watching Patrick Wilson work through some deeply personal issues of his own in “The Red Door,” it must be said that he has a good grip on this style of horror film. The sequel doesn't focus on the loud jump-scares too much, a concentrated effort being made to build up an eerie atmosphere. More than once, the film deploys the quality gag of a figure lingering off in the distance, unnoticed by the protagonist. This not only sums up the thematic branches of the story, of how the memories of the dead hang around, but also a spooky set-up in its own right. There's a nice layer of fog floating over the ground at times, which always works for me. A sequence set inside an MRI machine slowly builds nicely, utilizing the claustrophobic setting to build up to a potent jolt. Like all “Insidious” movies, this one gets much goofier the further it goes along. Attempts to call-back to earlier installments mean re-visiting Tiny Tim and the Red Faced Demon but it's not badly done.

Despite the many things “Insidious: The Red Door” does right, the sequel still makes a considerable misstep. Josh Lambert is at the center of long stretches of the movie but he's not actually the protagonist of “The Red Door.” As a college student, Ty Simpkins plays Dalton as an angsty, artistic type. He's not an immediately likable character, far too wrapped up in his own Daddy issues. To compensate, the film gives him a sidekick in the form of Sinclair Daniel as Chris Winslow. She is his designated roommate, whose litany of eccentric behavior includes playing the harmonium at odd hours and forcing Dalton to attended an adult baby-themed frat party. The quirks are more irritating than endearing, the film failing to make us care about adult Dalton or his roommate too much. Splitting time between father and son is a flaw already, as it limits the interactions they have together.

“Insidious: The Red Door” often functions as the closing chapter of this particular franchise. Bringing the series back to the Lamberts creates a feeling of events coming full-circle. The conclusion suggests that the Red Door may be closed for good... Except, of course, a money-making horror franchise is rarely allowed to rest. Naturally, there's a last second teaser to suggest the possibility that the story will continue. The question of what the hell the Lipstick-Faced Demon is remains as well. Accordingly, both a sixth installment and a spin-off have been given the greenlight. Whether the saga of the Lambert family is truly concluded, or if these newer installments will follow the ghost-hunting narratives of the middle chapters, remains to be seen. I'm partial to the latter, as these movies tend to be a little better when focusing on that idea. Still, “The Red Door” is better than you'd expect the fourth sequel to be. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Fast X (2023)

I came to the "Fast & Furious" franchise late. My best friend and former podcast co-host JD has been trying to get me into the series for years. I, however, couldn't get pass the car-bro sensibilities of the first few entries. I'm also too much of an obsessive-compulsive nerd to simply jump in at the fourth or fifth movie. The looming release of "Fast X" – supposedly the beginning of the end for the saga of Dom Torreto and his family – was the push I needed to finally indulge in this particular franchise. Over the course of a week, I raced through the previous ten movies before heading to the theaters to see "Fast X." Admittedly, I went from a "Fast" skeptic to a full-on convert by the end. While most seem to consider "Fast X" the latest disappointing installment in a series running on fumes, I'll admit I had a good time with it. Maybe Vin was right. Maybe movies like this, of such overwhelming bombast and absurdity, are best enjoyed on a big screen with a packed audience. 

Once again, Dom and his wife Letty are living in peace with their son, Little B. Once again, the mysterious Agency they've been aligned with for the last few films wants to recruit them. This time, it's to retrieve an experimental microchip traveling through Italy. Roman decides to lead the rest of the "Fast" family on this mission, Dom staying behind. That's when an injured Cipher appears at his home. She warns him that a sadistic new villain has appeared: Dante Reyes, the psychotic son of "Fast Five's" Hernan Reyes, is determined not only to destroy Dom and his family but to make sure they suffer as well. There is no microchip and the mission in Italy is a scheme by Dante. Dom and Letty try to rescue the others from Dante's plot but it goes awry. Soon, everyone is on the run from the Agency or Dante's murderous rage. 

I've commented before that the last two "Fast" movies have started to feel a bit muddled in their plotting, with so many characters running around in pursuit of increasingly unimportant MacGuffins. "Fast X" finds a perhaps inelegant solution to this problem. It essentially isolates parts of its cast to four independent storylines for most of its runtime. Dom heads to Rio, in pursuit of Dante, hoping to spare more innocents from his wicked plot. Roman, Han, Tej, and Ramsey are on-the-run from authorities through Europe, after being framed by Dante for a terrorist attack in Italy. Letty gets captured and thrown in an underground techno prison with Cipher, the former enemies forced to forge an alliance if they hope to escape. Meanwhile, Jakob Torreto rescues Little B from Dante's thugs, leading the two on a road trip across America together. Running through all these stories are appearances from two new characters, in the form of Brie Larson and Alan Ritchson as opposing members of the Agency. 

We can only speculate on why the movie is structured like this. The fact that nobody wants to work with Vin Diesel anymore might be a factor. So might Justin Lin leaving the production early on, to be replaced by graduate of the Luc Besson school of action, Louis Leterrier. Whatever the reason, I actually found this split to work fairly well. Dom's story line is by far the grimmest, with Dante playing cruel head games by endangering innocent bystander. This segment is also the heaviest on the series' trademark car stunts, featuring a brief return to its street racing roots. Letty and Cipher's prison escape movie has its own joys. Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron's mutual grizzled charisma play off each other nicely. The absurdity of the techno prison setting, with its spider robots and massive air vents, amused me. As did the convoluted planning the two characters have to think up in order to escape. 

Meanwhile, the other halves of the movie are goofier than ever. Roman's gang head into a hacker shop, leading to a cameo from everyone's favorite sunken-eyed comedy star/gossip mill whipping boy. There are comedic beats here involving Han eating a pot muffin and Tyrese tossing talcum powder into the air that are totally inexplicable. Honestly, the more surreal humor blends nicely with a series that has gone so totally off the rails. The last movie that comprises "Fast X," revolving around Jakob and Brian's road trip, feels like a nineties kids movie/action flick mash-up. John Cena might as well be playing a totally different character, the fun uncle Jakob has become resembling part nine's conniving super villain not at all. Yet Cena's goofball charm seals the deal for me. By the time the former pro-wrestling superstar is driving a homemade war wagon down the freeway, launching rockets at his enemies, I really did feel like I was watching a big budget leftover from the "Suburban Commando/Double Trouble" era of action cinema. 

If the muscled-up charms of its cast are the main thing that holds "Fast X" together, this is most true of its antagonist. The "Fast" franchise didn't start getting memorable bad guys until the sixth film and Jason Momoa as Dante Reyes easily tops them all. Momoa is exactly the kind of beefy superstar you'd expect to show up in these movies. However, Momoa made the utterly inspired decision not to play Dante as a roided-up tough guy... But as a preening peacock, a camp-gay supervillain who parades through the movie in a series of gaudy outfits. Momoa is clearly having the time of his life, gloriously hamming it up as a bad guy who relishes his own fabulousness. The character's flamboyance blends well with his sadism, allowing the ridiculous excess of his evil plan to be much more easily swallowed. The over-the-top queerness of the character is an implicit threat to the hyper-macho main characters, while also allowing the series to slyly indulge in its barely bubbling-under-the-surface homoeroticism more than ever. Momoa's The Joker by way of Rip Taylor performance enlivens the entire movie and makes it substantially more entertaining than it would've been otherwise. 

Which isn't to say that the movie's main attraction – its gravity defying action scenes – aren't thoroughly amusingly in their preposterousness. The first proper action scene involves Vin and the gang chasing a giant, flaming, neutron bomb through the streets of Rome. The climatic bridge shoot-out from part five is revived, this time with Vin doing far more superhuman acts. I really can't undersell how much I enjoyed the war wagon scene with Cena as well. There's some good fisticuffs too. Cipher's escape from Dante's ambush being the first time Charlize Theron's action chops have really had a chance to shine in this series. Brie Larson, dressed as Hillary Clinton in spiky punk heels, even gets a notable action scene to herself. The climax features Dom's iconic Charger diving out of an airplane and outrunning a massive fireball. Maybe it's not as fresh as any of the chaos from "Fast Five" or six but I'm not gonna lie. I enjoyed it. 

"Fast X" is definitely very self-aware of its status as an event blockbuster, the "Infinity Wars" of this franchise. It packs its extensive runtime with multiple high-profile cameos, and to further the "Infinity Wars" comparison, ends on a downbeat cliffhanger. While you can argue about the film's merits all you want, I guess I got wrapped up in its big, doofy charms. Whether that's largely thanks to Momoa's expert hamming or just me suddenly having a fondness for this ridiculous franchise, I suppose that's for others to figure out. I'd personally would put this above the last few installments and am absolutely on the hook for "Fast X-2" or "FUR11OUS" or whatever they call it. [7/10]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2021)

10. Malignant

You've always heard of filmmakers trying to break into Hollywood by making a low budget horror movie. The idea being that they could piggy-back off the genre film's success in order to make what I suppose some people would call “real” movies. As far as I can tell, this hasn't actually happened that often. Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are only a few exceptions that come to mind. Having said that, after directing two billion dollar grossing action movies, James Wan certainly could have stopped making horror movies, if he wanted to. Instead, he's continuously returned to the genre that he clearly loves. The director took the blank check presumably afforded to him after “Aquaman” made a bundle for WB and spent it on “Malignant,” a weirder and wilder horror movie than any of the previous ones he made. While “Malignant” failed to recreate the box office success of “Saw,” “Insidious,” or “The Conjuring,” it was well received among a certain breed of horror nerd. In fact, it's also the movie that finally convinced me that I actually like this guy.

Madison has no memories of her life before being adopted by her foster parents. She barely recalls her childhood before her sister, Sydney, was born. She has moved back into the home in Seattle where they grew up. Her marriage is strained by the number of miscarriages she's had, which her abusive husband blames her for. After smashing Madison's head into the wall, an intruder sneaks into the house and violently murders the husband. Following another miscarriage, Madison begins to have disturbing visions of someone called Gabriel violently murdering people... All of whom are doctors, who treated her as a child. She discovers that “Gabriel” was also the name of her disturbing imaginary friend as a kid. With the cops suspicious of her connections to the killing, Madison and Sydney dig more into her past to discover a disturbing truth. Gabriel is very real and his connection to Madison is far deeper than she could ever guess.

“Malignant” can be described as a type of movie that is, when done poorly, insufferably self-indulgent but, when handled right, results in some of the coolest motion pictures ever: The director just shoving in stuff he likes for the entirety of the run time. As evident by all of his haunted house movies, James Wan is fond of foreboding old buildings, surrounded by fog and containing creepy attics. Extra points if it's an abandoned hospital too. “Saw” featured a mild detective element, which also appears here. The killer has long gothy hair and wears a black trench coat, not unlike a spectre that previously appeared in “Insidious.” It's only by some miracle that “Malignant” doesn't feature a creepy ventriloquist dummy. There's a sequence set in the Seattle underground, one gets the feeling mostly because the director had been wanting to utilize it for a while. The killer broadcasting their thoughts via scrambled electronics also strikes me as a premise that had been searching for a home. Somehow, “Malignant” doesn't feel like a grab bag of random, unrelated ingredients, all these wild premises blending together into one kooky narrative. 

Something else Wan likes, it would seem, is fucking around with camera angles. After being the cinematographer for the last three “Conjuring”-verse projects, Michael Burgess graduates to working with the franchise's creator directly. The guy clearly knows his stuff too. Another reoccurring element of “Malignant's” script is Madison experiencing Gabriel's murders as psychic visions. This is accompanied by the environment distorting and melting away, a fun extension of the grungy visuals Wan employed way back in “Saw.” When “Malignant” really starts playing, we have smooth, gliding point-of-view shots or overhead perspectives roaming through a home. “Malignant” begins with a frantic “Jurassic Park” homage full of playful Dutch angles. One of the most distinctive moments in the film prominently displays a massive Silvercup Studios sign in the background. Any fans of eighties genre cinema will recognize this as a shout-out to “Highlander,” Wan acknowledging his debt to fellow Aussie Russell Mulcahy. And I fucking love “Highlander,” so it's an unexpected nod I truly enjoyed.

This is not the only obvious influence Wan happily points to in “Malignant.” Early in production, the film was described as being “in line with a giallo film.” Upon release, a lot of people followed this thread and declared "Malignant" a full-blown giallo homage. I think that's overstating it. It's a murder mystery of sorts, with a black gloved killer that wields a distinctive knife. A pair of chummy detectives are also on the murderer's trail. However, they aren't the protagonists and the story eventually leans in a totally different direction, more akin to a modern revamping of an eighties monster movie. When Wan said "Malignant" was giallo adjacent, what he really meant is that it was Argento inspired. Which mostly meant drawing from the exaggerated color palette of "Suspiria." Not that this is a complaint. Wan has sprinkled some neon reds into his previous films and goes full-hog with it here. Searing red lighting stands alongside deep blacks and stylized blues. The result is a movie that is way more striking, visually, than the likes of "Insidious" or "The Conjuring." Callbacks to horror nerd favorites from the seventies and eighties is another thing Wan likes, another ingredient swirling around in the stew of influences that is "Malignant."

He doesn't stop there. When the film first debuted in theaters, I was told to go in as blind as possible. However, I still caught wind of the movie containing elements people described as "Henenlotter-esque." Wan also enjoys wild twists in the narrative, having included them to varying degrees of success from time to time. For its first half, "Malignant" seems to be chasing a hacky story swerve straight from the Donald Kaufman playbook: That the hero and the villain are the same person, suffering from a split personality. The script repeatedly suggests Gabriel is supernatural, as displayed by his various superpowers. However, his deep link to Madison's mind makes you expect him to merely be a repressed persona. Remembering the comparison to Henenlotter, I fully expected a "Basket Case" reveal: That Gabriel was a conjoined twin of Madison's, separated in their youth and now back for revenge. That he targets the doctors that experimented on them makes you think this. That's a lot closer to what "Malignant" is doing but this hides another, far wackier left-turn. That the script continuously kept me guessing, going in ever more unexpected directions, made that first viewing a delightful experience. For bonus measure, a "Saw" style twist – that an imprisoned supporting player is a lot closer than expected – occurs early in the story in an explosively dramatic fashion. 

What all of these choices represent – the comic book colors, the script always topping itself with wilder twists, a playful blending of genre elements – is the director and his team happily ditching the commitment to realism seen in his earlier work. "Saw" and "Insidious" got ridiculous in spots. All his ghost movies have paranormal plots. Ultimately though, these films take place in "the real world." They are rooted in a desire to be plausible, no matter how fantastical the stories got. Most American cinema is like this, committed to reflecting reality even with the inclusion of fantastical events. This has always been a detriment to Wan's horror movies because, deep down, he's a silly boy. I've always sensed that his heart belonged more to "Evil Dead 2" than "Seven." The Saturday morning cartoon theatrics of "Furious 7" and "Aquaman" allowed Wan to indulge this desire. With "Malignant," he finally brings that energy to his macabre side. Thus, when Sydney drives up to a towering mental hospital, she parks right on the edge of a perilous cliff. When the cops finally deduce that Madison has something to do with these killings, she's thrown into the hoosegow with a collection of farcical female crooks that seem straight out of a parody of women-in-prison films. Because why not? Why not insert a lady with a fabulous afro and a seventies pimp suit? Is there a good reason not to add Zoe Bell with a hideous mullet into your body-horror filled, giallo-adjacent, slasher-esque psycho-thriller? Bell gets to scream "What the fuck?!" in reaction to the movie's most outrageous reveal. That is how the viewer is supposed to respond too, with baffled disbelief that what was advertised as a "normal" studio horror movie went there.

In other words, "Malignant" is having fun. It dismisses the need to be bound to boring plausibility, not caring if you laugh at it or with it. This instinct informs the choice to have something else follow Wan here from his blockbusters. With a half-hour to go, "Malignant" suddenly shifts again into an over-the-top action flick. Yes, this hideously deformed movie monster with a delightfully weird gimmick also knows kung-fu. Did I mention Gabriel has super strength too? This results in an incredibly entertaining, beautifully unexpected sequence of the villain tearing through an entire police station, graphically snapping bones, crushing heads, leaping through the air, and tossing a chair a yard away and exactly hitting the intended target. "Malignant" fully commits to this swing into Hong Kong action, with skillfully choreographed stunts and a novel combination of puppetry, make-up, and a very talented contortionist/dancer to pull it all off. I suppose what I'm saying is more horror movies would benefit from having their bad guy, without warning, start throwing out some pencak silat moves over an hour into their runtime. 

Horror movies aimed right at the Fangoria crowd, assembled from random parts of seventies and eighties classics, aren't often especially deep affairs. "Malignant's" script is credited to Akela Cooper – the author of "Hell Fest," another underrated throwback to eighties horror – but is based on a story by Wan and his wife, Ingrid Bisu. Meaning some of his writerly quirks are undeniably present. "Malignant" is mostly concerned with catching the viewer off-guard with successively wilder twists. However, something else James Wan likes are stories of childhood trauma returning to haunt someone as an adult. That was the central thrust of his "Insidious" movies, the ghostly presence eventually emerging as a symbol of abusive parents, and "Dead Silence" played with that a little too. All throughout her childhood, Madison has heard voices telling her to do awful things. Once she received the proper medical treatment, this lurking voice was suppressed deep within her skull... Until a blow from her abusive husband awoke that subconscious personality. Gabriel targets the doctors that tried to destroy him but also Madison's sister and birth mother. The implication seems to be that Gabriel wouldn't exist without this primordial parental abandonment. He also sees Madison's foster parents having another child through biological means as further evidence that he is unwanted. This turns Gabriel into a symbol of mental illness, a monster inherited from Madison's biological parents that is always lurking in the back of her skull. He wants to destroy the people she loves, to remind Madison that she deserves to be alone and unloved. The title refers to the exact nature of what Gabriel is. However, it also refers to another type of malignancy born out of our genes that waits to sprout up again, like any tumor or cancer would. 

Indie horror guy J.T. Petty also did an uncredited pass on the script. If anybody else saw "S&Man" or "Hellbenders" too, you might also recognize some of Petty's sick sense of humor here. Rather than simply have its villain function as a metaphor for intrusive thoughts or a genetic propensity towards schizophrenia and depression, Gabriel is literally a horrible monster existing within Madison's physical skull that had to be shoved down and hidden. This essentially makes the villain an elaborate pun, a visual joke literalizing the idea of a suppressed personality. At the same time, this is the latest horror film from the man that brought the world Jigsaw, Annabelle, the Nun, and the Lipstick Faced Demon. Gabriel was definitely designed to be a new cool horror villain, the kind to spawn future Halloween costumes, that would've gotten a Movie Maniacs action figure back in the nineties. The long, stringy black hair and leather slicker recalls goth fashion and shock-rock imagery. Gabriel's trademark weapon, a dagger fashioned from a trophy his doctor owned, was clearly designed to be as immediately recognizable as Freddy Krueger's glove or the Lament Configuration. What makes Gabriel a lot more interesting than the director's previous attempts to reverse engineer a new horror icon is his especially grotesque defining gimmick. While utilizing contorted, twisted body parts for easy shocks have long since become a much-abused cliché, "Malignant" pushes it so much further than any other film, becoming a genuinely new approach to the idea that has an undeniable novelty to it. That grotesqueness might have made Gabriel too gross to become a new pop icon. However, the way the character combines rubber creature effects, twitchy body horror, and theatrical costuming truly works for me.

How much of "Malignant" is going for campy laughs over intense chills is debatable. The film largely strikes me as in-on-its-own-joke while playing the material fairly straight. This is true of most of the supporting cast. George Young and Michole Briana White play the detectives on the case. Young has a perpetual look of annoyance on her face, as if she can't believe any of this shit, while Young carefully tows the line between being sympathetic towards Madison's cause and baffled by what he sees. Maddie Hasson brings a plucky spirit to Sydney, someone eager to defend her older sister and that the audience can root for. All the actors playing the doctors involved in Gabriel's past, Jacqueline McKenzie and Christine Clemenson primarily, play the material with utmost seriousness. They treat the pulpy melodrama of the film as if they are living it themselves. 

A funny thing about even the best performances in "Malignant" is that they act as if they have been dubbed into English. If Wan truly was seeking to replicate the look and feel of a seventies Italian flick, I suppose this hard-to-nail-down effect was all too intentional. However, that odd off-beat quality to the acting is most noticeable in the film's lead. Annabelle Willis previously starred (not as the doll) in the first "Annabelle," so one assumed Wan must see something in her. Truthfully, her performance is kind of terrible in "Malignant." She speaks every line as if she's on the verge of breaking into an operatic scream. Her attempts to play Madison as panicked or traumatized come across as jittery and overdone. When the character has to be heroic, she is far less believable. It doesn't distract from me enjoying the rest of the movie. However, it is another noticeably weird thing about this off-beat flick. 

Just as making "Dead Silence" after "Saw" was a deliberate attempt to avoid getting pigeonholed as only a gore guy, James Wan made "Malignant" to avoid becoming known in Hollywood primarily as the ghost movie dude. It didn't exactly work, as "Malignant" failed to attract a mainstream audience the way the director's previous shriek shows did. From the admittedly small sample size I've witnessed, it seems the average moviegoer found this one too goofy or something. That same quality made it instantly beloved among horror fan crowds. As James Wan has plenty of other projects to fall back on, all "Malignant's" mediocre performance truly means is we won't get a sequel. Gabriel will not return to vex Madison in increasingly weirder ways. I would have liked to have seen that, especially if it meant Wan became more willing to mix his love of horror imagery, intense violence, and plot twists with the throw-it-in, go-nuts approach of this movie. Upon re-watch, "Malignant" has emerged as not only my pick for Wan's best horror movie but probably my favorite thing he's yet done. [Grade: A-]