“MALIGNANT” tells the eerie story of a young woman, Madison (Annabelle Wallis), who finds herself in a difficult life situation. Abusive husband (Jake Abel) beats her – pregnant – and this despite the fact that she has already suffered several miscarriages. Even more overshadowing the family drama is the attack of a mysterious intruder who breaks into the heroes’ house. After this incident, Madison has new troubles – only of a supernatural nature.
Someone brutally kills doctors who in the 1990s were engaged in research on childhood tumors. Murders are terrifying not only for their cruelty and bloodthirstiness. The strangest thing here is that the killer somehow takes over Madison’s mind and takes her to the scene of the crimes, forcing her to watch the massacres. Madison takes on a case with the help of her sister (Maddie Hasson) and a pair of detectives (George Young and Mycol White). None of them could have imagined how shocking the mystery of this demonic assassin would be.
What is movie MALIGNANT about
Horror “MALIGNANT” begins with a scene in a medical research center. Set in 1993, Dr. Florence Weaver is shown dealing with the negative consequences of an experiment on a child she and other hospital staff call “Gabriel”. A child (or an unknown creature pretending to be a child) goes out of control and kills several employees of a medical institution.
Gabriel’s powers are constantly growing and the monster in the form of a child is becoming increasingly difficult to contain. And now he can not only cope with adults who are bigger or stronger – he has learned to talk using the speakers of electronic devices, as well as control electricity.
Dr. Florence Weaver comes to the disappointing conclusion that the only way out for doctors is to “cut out the cancer.” And she resolutely sets about the task. And then the events are transferred to our time.
We are then shown a young woman, Madison, returning home from her shift. From the uniform, it can be inferred that she works in a hospital. And the point is, she’s pregnant.
From her conversation with her husband, who apparently sits around all day long, we learn that this is not the first pregnancy, but Madison has lost all previous children. The husband blames his wife for what is happening – and beats her with such force that she flies into the wall. Later, we are repeatedly made to understand that the beatings did not go unnoticed and the main character injured her head.
At night, Madison has a nightmare – it seems to a woman that something terrible – a monster or a demon – has entered her house. And the monster killed her husband/domestic tyrant. Madison wakes up and descends to the first floor of the house – and finds out that her dream has come true.
The monster chases the pregnant woman, she tries to hide in the room, but the creature blows the door off its hinges. As a result, Madison loses consciousness and wakes up in the hospital. And with horror she realizes that she has lost her child again.
Meanwhile, police detectives Kekoa Shaw and Regina Moss take a closer look at Madison’s house. They investigate the mysterious murder of her husband – and realize that they do not understand anything. It seems that the investigation is about to reach a dead end, since there are no traces of the mysterious killer, and everything at the crime scene looks like the man was killed by someone hanging from the ceiling.
After returning to Madison’s house, nightmares begin to haunt her – in a dream and in reality. Firstly, it seems to the woman that something evil and terrible has settled nearby – the light is blinking, the doors open and close by themselves. And secondly, the main character is haunted by nightmarish visions in which an unknown creature commits other murders.
A mysterious villain kills Dr. Florence Weaver and two of her colleagues, who also worked at the research center and experimented on Gabriel. Madison herself and the police detectives understand that she is somehow connected with the maniac. Subsequently, we learn that Sydney is not Madison’s sister, because the latter was adopted at the age of 8 years. But the strangest thing is that Madison does not remember anything about her past. And Gabriel starts calling on the phone.
The foster mother tells Madison that she has already encountered Gabriel – as the main character called her imaginary friend in childhood, who was clearly trying to exert a bad influence on her. But the adoptive parents decided that this was a childish defensive reaction – and decided to do everything so that their daughter did not need an imaginary friend.
Madison then helps police detectives locate Gabriel’s latest victim, Kekoa confronts the maniac, miraculously survives and pursues the monster. Madison then participates in a hypnosis session and remembers her past. And later, another victim breaks out of Gabriel’s trap… and turns out to be the biological mother of the main character – Serena. But worst of all, the monster locked Serena in the attic of Madison’s house – and the police arrest the girl on suspicion of murder and kidnapping. The maniac’s cloak is found in the attic, as well as the murder weapon, a fancy dagger that Gabriel made from Dr. Weaver’s bounty.
What was actually shown in the finale of the horror “MALIGNANT” and how to understand the ending?
What is Gabriel really? The key plot twist with the parasitic twin is as follows. About halfway through the horror movie Wicked, we learn that Madison is not Sydney’s sister, because her parents adopted a girl at the age of 8. Approximately in 1993. Almost immediately after that, Emily (that was the name of the main character initially, and her adoptive parents called her Madison) began to demonstrate strange behavior. The point is that the main character in childhood had an imaginary friend, whom she called “Gabriel”.
It may seem that James Wan decided to ride the horror subgenre about sinister imaginary friends gradually making their way into the real world. But the essence of “MALIGNANT” is completely different. The fact is that Emily / Madison’s biological mother – Serena – was raped by an unknown person at the age of 15 and the teenage girl became pregnant. Since the victim’s mother was very religious, she forbade her to have an abortion, but she did not allow her to leave the child either. In addition, the biological mother’s pregnancy proceeded in an unusual way – and as a result of the anomaly, the twins grew together into a single organism. The girl was frightened and turned to Dr. Weaver for help.
As a result, it turns out that Gabriel is Madison’s parasitic twin brother, who, during the development of the fetus, grew attached to her back and head, but could not develop enough to become a full-fledged independent organism. But the point again is that Gabriel is not just a disease – he is a reasonable and very evil being, who from childhood could influence the thoughts and actions of his sister. For example, Gabriel constantly talked to Emily – sometimes with his voice, but sometimes he broadcast his thoughts into her brain. And not only convinced the girl that he was her best friend, but also tried to make her do terrible things.
Despite the fact that in reality, parasitic twins are an increase devoid of individuality and personality, in his horror film, James Wan rewarded the bloodthirsty monster Gabriel with the features of a Siamese twin.
The essence of parasitic twins is that they attach themselves to their brothers and sisters and actually feed on relatives. This is how Gabriel survived. Despite the fact that at the age of eight they tried to surgically separate him from Madison / Emily because he became too aggressive (not only began to actively absorb his own sister, but also to kill the people around him – the medical staff of a closed experimental hospital), remove some of Gabriel’s tissues from the girl’s body failed. But the doctors were sure that they had destroyed the mind of the monster and now the patient is not in danger.
The conflict between the pregnant Madison and her husband – when he hit his wife and damaged her occipital bones of the skull – awakened the dormant Gabriel and released the parasitic twin. That is why the girl could not give birth to a child in any way – all her pregnancies ended in miscarriages. The fact is that Gabriel interfered with the development of the fetus in the body of a twin sister – in fact, he ate unborn children.
But the worst thing is that after the conflict with her husband Emily / Madison, the cruel monster regained self-awareness: Gabriel not only woke up and began to influence the thoughts and actions of his twin sister – he learned to seize control of her body! And in fact, all the brutal murders were committed by Madison (at least her distorted and altered body), but in a state of blackout.
As we were shown in flashbacks and videos, Gabriel was always trying to influence Madison’s behavior. But if in childhood he mainly tried to communicate with her using telepathy and speakers of various devices, and also deceived and caused hallucinations (therefore, the girl almost stabbed her pregnant foster mother – the monster convinced her that she was going to cut the cake), now completely began to lock the woman inside her consciousness. In short, Madison might think that she was just sleeping or doing household chores, but in fact, at this moment she, in the form of Gabriel, was killing someone.
It turns out that Gabriel was immersing his sister in some kind of virtual reality, because he had a direct effect on her brain. But it seems that Madison / Emily’s personality turned out to be stronger, so at first she began to observe visions of Gabriel’s actions, and in the final she completely defeated the evil monster and locked him in a mental prison in her mind.
What is shown in the final “MALIGNANT”? Gabriel finally goes out of control, completely suppresses Madison’s personality and brutally massacres an entire police station. And almost at the very end, the monster goes to the hospital to Serena’s real biological mother in order to cruelly avenge her betrayal. Despite the fact that the woman repents of her past deeds (that she gave the children for experiments – in the clinic they actually performed medical experiments on the twins) and calls Gabriel her son.
Madison’s sister, Sydney, also comes to the hospital to stop Gabriel and awaken her sister’s personality. But we were shown at the end of the horror film that her attempt failed: Gabrielle first wounds Sidney when he throws a hospital bed at her in her mother’s room, and then shoots the girl in the head with a pistol. And then the monster is going to get even with the mother.
But suddenly, another plot twist follows. It turns out that in fact, Gabrielle now sees illusions: Madison regained control of her body and took over the evil essence of the parasitic twin. And she not only defeated the monster, but also locked him in an imaginary prison in her mind. This scene should be understood as follows: the main character finally found the cause of all her troubles and understood how to solve the main problem.
In the final scene, we are shown that the evil creature from the nightmares has been defeated. Even though Gabrielle promises Madison that she will one day break out of the dungeon and return, the woman won and took control of her life. Her sister Sydney is not just alive – Madison understands that she is really a dear person. In addition, the main character thus saves the biological mother, who repents of her deed. It turns out that Madison manages to come to terms with the past and accept her true essence.
True, we do not know anything about the further fate of Madison, because she killed so many people. And it is doubtful that the law recognizes her as a victim – even if she really is the first to suffer from the actions of her parasitic twin.
But how do you really understand the “MALIGNANT” ending? In fact, the plot of the film can be interpreted in any way. For example, as a metaphor for the struggle with a serious, perhaps even fatal disease – with a favorable outcome. Or as a story about the battle with inner demons and vices – attempts to overcome your bad habits or defeat the dark sides of character and personality. And Wang’s new creation can be called a bold attempt to mix favorite horror subgenres in one movie – and do something truly unusual and unformatted. So unusual that it will evoke vivid emotions in the audience.
How Madison managed to defeat the villain
Before Madison was adopted, she was a patient at the research center where the murdered scientists worked. The heroine had a frightening form of teratoma – tumors in the form of a full-fledged organ. And it was not just a tumor, but her twin brother Gabriel. In the womb of a raped teenage girl, the twins failed to “separate”. Madison was born a normal child, and the underdeveloped Gabriel was left on her back. They were not Siamese twins: Gabriel is more like a “parasite” that feeds on the hostess – Madison.
Gabriel was surgically separated from Madison, but part of his head remained in her brain – otherwise the girl would have died. At first, Madison’s brother could communicate with her, but then she suppressed him and forgot about her brother, turning her attention to her newborn sister. However, Gabriel did not disappear from her consciousness anywhere – he got stronger and waited for the right moment to prove himself. After another attack by Madison’s wife, he fully woke up, because the man hit his wife hard with the back of the head against the wall. The returned brother began to control the body of his sister in order to kill the offenders – the doctors responsible for his “removal”.
Madison and Gabriel have one brain for two – this is what the heroine took advantage of in the final battle of “MALIGNANT”. She found out that it was Gabriel who was responsible for her miscarriages. Then Madison, in a fit of rage and fear for the life of her sister and biological mother, found a way out of the situation – to defeat the enemy with his own weapon. The heroine captured her brother’s mind, deceived him with illusions and dragged him into the depths of her subconscious. Madison built a cage for Gabriel in her own mind.
What are the powers of Gabriel
Gabriel knows how to manipulate Madison’s mind: not only control her body, but also make her see and hear what is not there. Gabriel is also very strong, fast, flexible, he is able to endure severe pain, and he can also deftly move – it seems, even on the ceiling. The villain knows how to control electricity and, using electromagnetic impulses, transmit his messages through devices – through the same smartphone.
What poignant topics does James Wan discuss in “MALIGNANT”
The film “MALIGNANT” became a metaphor for the struggle between the light and dark sides of a person – Madison against Gabriel. Madison also fought for free will and the ability to make decisions on her own. At the same time, James Wan raises the acute social problems of domestic violence and toxic relationships. The theme of inhumane methods of work of scientists is also revealed. Gabriel, as they say in the film, was born a “fiend of evil” – but if the doctors had not tortured him with their experiments, then maybe he would not have become so strong and evil.
“MALIGNANT 2”: will there be a continuation of the horror and when will it be released?
The finale of the horror film “MALIGNANT” hints opaquely that the nightmare is not over yet. Gabriel is defeated and defeated, now he is in an imaginary prison in the halls of his sister’s mind … But the monster is sure that sooner or later he will be able to break free and take revenge on Madison and her family and friends. Looks like the story isn’t really over…
In addition, the “MALIGNANT” ending can generally be considered open. Let the main threat and managed to temporarily hide away from prying eyes, but the MALIGNANT is not actually destroyed. Gabriel is alive and still exists – and continues to accumulate malice and strength for revenge. So it is possible that in one form or another the story will still receive a continuation. This is indicated by the light bulb, which at the very end buzzes and tries to turn on: this means that Gabriel is alive, but can hardly influence reality. While
In addition, all viewers should understand that ahead of Madison is now waiting for a lot of trouble. Even if the girl did not want to harm anyone, but thanks to the parasitic twin, she is now a brutal serial killer. Albeit against your will. So the sequel is literally asking for it.
However, “MALIGNANT 2” will most likely never come out again, because James Wan’s new horror movie was a smash hit at the box office, earning only $15 million in two weeks on a production budget of $40 million.
