Malignant (R)
Bloody Disgusting; Dread Central; IMDb; Kindertrauma; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Warner Bros.; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Fandango; Google Play; Hulu; Max; Movies Anywhere; YouTube

This came out in 2021, but I didn't see it until 2025. Before I watched this movie, I thought I was going to file my review under "supernatural horror". But when I did watch it, I decided it's not so much supernatural as paranormal, and I don't have a category for paranormal horror. Wikipedia puts its article for the movie in several genres, including thriller, slasher, monster movie, supernatural horror, and science fiction horror. I also think psychological horror would be somewhat apt, and I even considered starting a new category for body horror (though Wikipedia doesn't include it on its list of body horror movies). And when I read some reviews, giallo was mentioned as an inspiration, though I don't know much of anything about that. I also felt like I could categorize the movie as "weird", but I couldn't do that, because it wouldn't address the horror aspect of the movie. So I really wasn't sure where to put my review, and stressed about it for some time before finally saying "fuck it, I'll just call it sci-fi horror", even if I'm not entirely comfortable with that choice.

The movie got fairly good reviews, but failed to make back its money at the box office (though it also streamed on HBO Max during the first month of its release). As for my rating... I don't really know what to think about the movie. I guess I liked it, but mostly I was just "What the fuck did I just watch?"

It starts in 1993, at the Simion Research Hospital. A patient called Gabriel, who can control electricity and transmit his thoughts through a radio, kills a bunch of the staff before finally being sedated and restrained. Dr. Florence Weaver (Jacqueline McKenzie, whom I know from The 4400) regrets that Gabriel can't be helped, and announces it's time to "cut out the cancer".

The story then flashes forward to the present, when we meet a pregnant woman named Madison Mitchell, who has already had a few miscarriages, but is feeling hopeful about her current pregnancy. But she gets in an argument with her husband, Derek, who slams her head against the wall, and then apologizes. Madison discovers the back of her head is bleeding, and locks the bedroom door when Derek goes to get ice for her head. That night, Madison has a dream of Derek sleeping on the couch, and being attacked and killed by a monstrous intruder. When she wakes up, she goes downstairs and discovers Derek's dead body. The intruder then apparently attacks her. She wakes up in a hospital, being visited by her sister, Sydney Lake, who informs her that her baby didn't survive. The case of Derek's murder is investigated by police detectives Kekoa Shaw and Regina Moss, who believe Madison had motive to kill her husband, but they have no proof.

Madison tells Sydney that she (Madison) was adopted, to Sydney's surprise. Madison also has a vision of Dr. Weaver being murdered, which comes true. And the killer kidnaps a woman whose identity and connection to everything that's going on isn't revealed until late in the movie. When Madison has a vision of another doctor being killed, she goes to the police to insist they investigate. Shaw and Moss discover the man had been killed, just like Madison said. The detectives eventually bring in a psychiatrist to hypnotize Madison, to try and retrieve repressed memories of her life before her adoption. She still doesn't remember that far back, but she does have memories of Gabriel talking to her and telling her to do bad things, though her adoptive parents believed he was just her imaginary friend. They also learn that her birth name was Emily May (played in flashback by Mckenna Grace, though I completely failed to recognize her).

Beyond this point, I don't want to reveal anything that happens. Let's just say shit gets pretty crazy, and rather unbelievable. But as bizarre and horrifying as things get, at least it's an interesting plot twist, to say the least. The killer also turns out to be pretty badass, which makes for some really gory and twisted scenes. I also want to mention that there's a forensic technician named Winnie, who I thought was a fun character. She seems to have a crush on Shaw, though he seems oblivious to that, and he's more interested in Sydney. Anyway, the movie really is quite genre-defying, beyond just calling it "horror". A lot of it could be considered a fairly standard movie of any of the subgenres I mentioned earlier, especially psychological and slasher, but once the "monster" aspect is revealed, it gets redonkulous. I mean, it's played straight, and I found it genuinely chilling, but it's also possible to find humor in it. It almost makes this seem like a B-movie. But somehow, it works. And, yeah, I really don't know what else to say. It's all just incredibly freaky.