After drifting off to make Aquaman, James Wan, co-creator of the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises, makes his return to the horror genre with the giallo-inspired film Malignant, which will be reaching theatres and the HBO Max streaming service on September 10th – and with less than two weeks to go before the release date, a new trailer has arrived online. Check it out in the embed above!
Scripted by Akela Cooper from a story that Wan, Cooper, and Ingrid Bisu crafted together, Malignant will show us what happens when
Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities.
Wan has said that Malignant is his
take on that particular ’80s trope of storytelling where a victim starts seeing through the vision of a killer. There was a period where there were a lot of movies like that, and I’m a big fan of that particular sub-genre. Movies like The Eyes of Laura Mars. I wanted to do my own version, crossed with my love of [Brian] De Palma and [Dario] Argento and [Mario] Bava.”
The film stars Annabelle Wallis, who previously worked with Wan when he produced and she starred in Annabelle, a spin-off from his film The Conjuring. Wallis is joined in the cast by Maddie Hasson (We Summon the Darkness), George Young (Containment), Michole Briana White (Dead to Me), Jacqueline McKenzie (Palm Beach), Jake Abel (Supernatural), and Ingrid Bisu (The Nun).
Wan produced Malignant with Michael Clear, while Eric McLeod, Judson Scott, Bisu, Peter Luo, Cheng Yang, Mandy Yu, and Lei Han served as executive producers.
I have enjoyed most of Wan’s horror films, with The Conjuring being my favorite of the bunch, so I’m looking forward to Malignant. I’m excited to see him making a sort of giallo slasher, and it’s clear that the movie is going to have some incredible visuals.