Did you know the entire plot of Malignant is right there in the opening credits, but
you were too stupid to notice? Let’s start with the credits themselves. Annabelle Wallis is the
actress who plays the protag, Madison Mitchell. All of the repeated letters in her name (that is,
the Ns, the Ls and the other Ls) start as one letter, then divide into two. This process
mirrors the cell division that we later learn occurred to create the parasitic twin, Gabriel.
The actual footage shown during the title sequence also spoils the movie
if you can comprehend it. It’s assumed that the surgery clips we’re seeing are
the procedure on Gabriel mentioned in the opening, but stopping at just the right
moment shows that the patient name is Emily May; which we later learn is Madison’s real name.
A medical diagram shows a girl with eyes looking in different directions
as a result of the craniopagus, and Emily’s file mentions sleepwalking, hallucinations,
and waking dreams, all of which are eventually attributed to Gabriel hijacking her brian.
– [Dr Weaver] We’re starting to suspect that Gabriel can somehow access the regions of the brain
that process visual stimuli and make Emily see what she wants her to see.
This would explain her recent claims of hallucinations and waking dreams.
– Another page adds malnourishment to her list of symptoms. We come to find
out that Gabriel was essentially feeding off of her fetuses to build himself back
up. He was the hidden cause of all of her miscarriages.
We even see brain scans that seem to highlight the tumor on the backside of her head,
and this file describes craniofacial features including two fully formed faces,
while making a comparison to Janus cats, a rare condition in cats that causes them to
be born with 2 faces. The name was inspired by Janus, the Roman God of past and future,
who is depicted as having two faces—one looking into the past and one to the future.
Towards the end of the title sequence,
a page in this binder spells out the condition of craniopagus parasiticus,
which is the type of parasitic twinning that has bound Madison and Gabriel to share one brain.
There are many other clues about Malignant’s terrifying twist nested throughout the entire
movie, and many other Things You might have Missed. To learn the meaning
behind the hidden symbol on Detective Shaw’s computer screen, the clue hidden in the movie’s
soundtrack and the meanings behind character names and more, stick around to the end of this video.
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(metal intro)
Welcome to Things You Missed. In 2016, director James Wan released The Conjuring 2, his fourth
demonic possession movie. After this, he would take a little break from the horror genre,
but when he came back, he wanted to do something new. He came back with an original concept,
developed by his wife, actress / writer-producer Ingrid Bisu, who had a longtime fascination with
teratomas and parasitic twins. Ingrid also has a character in this movie named CST Winnie. I
believe the CST stands for Crime Scene Technician. She’s the one doing the hands-on investigating,
and she’s clearly passionate about her job. This would reflect her interest in the idea
of a villainous parasitic twin in real life. Her character also has a crush on the asian detective.
– [Det. Moss] Uh oh, here comes Ms. Lonelyheart.
– Hey Kokoa. – Winnie.
– You have to believe this character represents James Wan, the head of the investigation;
the director of the movie. James wanted to get back to his roots with a police procedural serial
crime movie, like his breakout hit, Saw, while also expanding into new territory.
– [Wan] There’s a bit of mystery, there’s a bit of creature feature monster aspect to it,
there's a serial killer aspect.
– He’s also talked about the influence of Italian Giallo horror films like the
nightmares of Dario Argento, and the body horror stylings of David Cronenberg. I’ll
get into some more specific examples when we get into the Things You Missed,
so let’s get in to the Things You…
Why do we do this? Why do we always open the show this way?
(upbeat music)
The opening company logos are altered to look like we’re watching them on an old CRT
monitor. This makes them match the video diaries from the Simion Research Facility
where we learn about Madison and Gabriel’s past, but also might be a reference to what
James Wan might have seen while watching old Giallo films on TV as a teenager in the 1990s.
The first diary we see is from Emily and Gabriel’s doctor, Florence Weaver,
and she has a bust of a man with an exposed brain. This is likely for demonstration purposes,
but it also serves as a precursor to Gabriel, who emerges by poking through Madison’s skull.
Also seen on the shelf is her Medical Research Association Award, which later becomes Gabriel’s
main weapon. It is originally a large spike surrounded by a tapering double snake helix and
angelic wings. The helix, when viewed from above, creates a spiral, a symbol that has become an
element of James Wan’s auteur as a director. I also noticed a similar tapering helix on
the plants outside Dr. Gregory’s apartment, shortly before he’s taken out by Gabriel.
Gabriel also makes his lair in the attic, and we enter it via a big spiraling camera
movement as Gabriel makes modifications to this trophy. This movement is also something
we’ve see before in Wan’s work, like this shot in Saw, or this shot in Dead Silence.
After removing the snakes, Gabriel keeps the angelic wings, effectively serving as
a hilt for his new weapon. This ties into a theme that Madison talks about much later on,
the idea that Gabriel is essentially a demon in hiding. The name Gabriel comes from the
biblical messenger angel, Gabriel. I imagine it was chosen to hide his true, evil nature.
– [Emily] He pretends to be nice. But he’s the devil.
– Gabriel likes to position himself in high places. I already talked about the attic,
but he also attacks Serena from above, and he attacks Shaw from above on multiple occasions.
But when he’s discovered and chased, he retreats to where he’s most at home,
the Seattle Underground; representative of hell. It is also the basement of the
research facility where Sydney discovers the files containing the truth about Gabriel,
where the graffiti makes the analogy a little bit more obvious.
But the idea that Gabriel is a devil posing as an angel is also reflected in the camera work.
Many of the attacks feature this top-down view on the victim. The house even contains
stained glass window artwork, something we’ve certainly seen before in residential houses,
but something you’re more likely to associate with a church.
The biblical Gabriel was a messenger angel who communicated with the prophet
Daniel to explain his visions. Malignant’s Gabriel literally gives Madison visions,
and communicates with her via TVs and radios.
Gabriel’s mother, Serena, might have predicted his true nature if she had listened to her parents.
In one of the tapes she explains her Mom and Dad were religious, and saw the teen pregnancy
as a transgression against God. Finally, the police gather information on Serena and if you
look carefully, her Social Security Number begins with 666, the number of the devil.
After the intro with Dr. Weaver, we meet the current day Emily May,
who now goes by Madison Mitchell. She has a child of her own on the way,
but when Gabriel comes back into her life, we can spot even more secrets.
(impact)
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(upbeat jazz)
(mysterious music)
Madison gets home to find her husband, Derek, watching a UFC match on TV, which depicts a
fighter punching his opponent in the back of the head. This is a foreshadowing of the incident that
would soon occur, where Derek pushes his wife into a wall and she cracks open the back of her head,
allowing Gabriel to surface. There are a couple instances in the movie of butterfly motifs,
like the wallpaper at the Simeon facility and Sydney’s outfit when she visits Madison
in the hospital. A butterfly takes flight only after coming out of its cocoon. It kind of reminds me
of the image of Gabriel poking his head out of the back of Madison’s skull. It’s hard
to say if that was intentional. The analogy isn’t perfect, because Gabriel could never
“take flight” and leave Madison’s body, because he’s just a parasite, he needs her to survive.
But there are some more concrete clues about who and what Gabriel really is.
When he strikes Derek, if you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice that his
hand is upside-down from what you’d expect. Try it right now. Take your right hand,
and do a nice overhead smack with your fingers pointing down. Unless you’re extremely flexible,
this will feel very unnatural. That’s because this is actually the left hand going behind the back.
The police do pick up on this, but have a different theory about how it was achieved.
– [Det. Moss] No fingerprints, but all the hand patterns are upside-down.
Like our perp was hanging from the ceiling.
– They also note that there was no forced entry into the house because Gabriel was already inside.
Derek’s head is twisted around 180° degrees, causing his face to essentially look backwards,
just like Gabriel. He’s fixing his victims so that they look like him. We also see him
do this at the jail, where one of the victim’s arms is pulled back in the opposite direction
of the joint, and at the police station where an officer’s limbs are bent back the wrong way.
Madison tries to cope by saying
– It’s all in my head… It’s all in my head.
– She’s correct, but it’s not her imagination, it’s literally in the back of her head.
– [Gabriel] You know who I am. Even if they say I’m only in your head.
– When she was young, the surgeons cut out as much of the cancer as possible, only leaving
what was necessary for Madison to survive. The rest of Gabriel was buried under her skull.
The way the tour guide describes Old Seattle seems symbolic of what happened to Gabriel.
– This is a tour of old Seattle. Buried underneath here like a time capsule of a bygone era.
– Of course, after her skull is cracked open, Gabriel’s face can push its way back to the
surface, which may be the inspiration for the wording of this line by Detective Moss.
– If I read about one more sick kid, my brain’s gonna push out my eyeballs.
– [Zac] I mentioned that Gabriel is able to essentially hijack Madison’s brain and
make her see visions of the crimes he commits when he’s in control. In her hallucinations,
Gabriel often emerges from the backside of her head,
first during the death scene of Dr. Fields, then again when Gabriel comes for Dr. Gregory.
After each hallucination, she awakens with fresh stains on her pillow,
because Gabriel had pushed his way out.
When Madison uses the bathroom at the police station, we can see the back
of her head in the mirror. Is it just me, or is there something mysterious
about the dark part in her hair right here? Kif, I’m asking you a question.
After escaping from Detective Shaw, it becomes more clear that he’s running backwards, and he
continually inverts himself when he's fleeing down the fire escape. The scene reminds me a lot of
John Doe’s escape in Se7en, which makes me think that James Wan was probably also inspired a lot by
fellow director David Fincher. The biggest Fincher connection though, is in Malignant’s soundtrack.
There will be major spoilers for Fight Club, so if you haven’t seen it, skip to the end of this
chapter. Fight Club has a somewhat similar twist ending. The main character has a split
personality, and at the end, he purges him by killing off the 2nd personality. In Malignant,
the voice in Madison’s head is more of a literal person, but she defeats him by locking him away in
her mind. Fight Club famously ends with the song “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies. Like if you look
up the song on YouTube, the top comments are all about Fight Club, the two are that intertwined.
The song that we hear over and over again during the transitions in
Malignant is clearly inspired by "Where Is My Mind?"
(cinematic music)
It seems to be a little clue from James Wan that
Malignant shares more than one thing in common with Fight Club.
But as I mentioned, the biggest source of inspiration seems to come from giallo,
an Italian genre of mystery / thriller / horror stories, primarily in the 60s and
70s. The way Gabriel fashions himself is very much like a typical giallo villain,
but I’ll save that for when I cover Gabriel on Horror History. But there are other examples,
though, like when the TV turns on, the first thing we hear sounds like an Italian film.
(italian voices)
Dr. Weaver keeps her records in “Bellagio Italia” binders. When Gabriel comes for
Dr. Fields at his apartment, the place is illuminated in red neon light. Colorful
neon lighting is a hallmark of giallo films, and they often depict a clash
of red and blues. Along with Gabriel’s silhouette, this scene is clearly an homage.
As a side note, the red light is being emitted from this sign outside,
which says Silvercup. Silvercup is a production facility in New York City. I’m guessing parts of
Malignant were filmed there, but as for the sign, it’s not quite the same as the real life sign,
so I’m guessing they created that in a sound studio. In the movie,
Silvercup is an apartment complex, not a production studio. Interestingly, Silvercup
was also a working title for Malignant. It’s not a very big part of the story,
so I’m guessing it was just used early on to hide what the movie might be about.
But the scene across from the Silvercup sign also shares a
huge similarity with another horror film from James Wan’s filmography.
(impact)
(dark music)
The way that Gabriel appears from the open window in Dr. Fields’s apartment is very
reminiscent of another James Wan villain appearance, this one in a motel during his
2007 film Dead Silence. The antagonist, Mary Shaw, appears in front of the flowing curtain,
illuminated only by the buzzing neon sign across the way. In fact, when Madison sees the vision of
Dr. Fields’s fate, the red light flickers in a very similar manner to the Mary Shaw encounter.
That brings me to my next Wan connection. The name “Shaw” comes up a lot in his work,
whether it’s Dead Silence’s Mary Shaw, Malignant’s Detective Kokoa Shaw, or even Furious 7’s Deckard
Shaw and Owen Shaw… although Deckard Shaw did debut in the previous film, Fast & Furious 6,
which James Wan was not involved with, and technically Deckard Shaw did too,
but he only appeared in the end credits, so he’s mostly a Furious 7 character.
Speaking of non-horror movies directed by Wan, his previous effort before Malignant was called
Aquaman. Yeah, they literally made a movie out of Aquaman.
– [Narrator] Fame led to book deals, movie appearences and hit records!
– [Zac] I guess Detective Shaw must be a fan. When he’s playing the video on his laptop, the Aquaman logo appears in the bottom corner of
his screen -- it’s not there before. His first name is also Kekoa. The actor who
plays the young version of Aquaman is named Kekoa Kekumano. So there’s definitely a reference there.
There might also be a Saw connection with him. He’s part of an asian / black detective
duo. I can’t help but wonder if this is a nod to Detectives Sing and Tapp from the original Saw.
Normally I don’t talk about actor cameos, but I do find it a little bit interesting that
both the young and old versions of Madison are played by actresses from the Annabelle movies,
which are produced by James Wan as part of his Conjuring franchise.
Before I talk about the significance behind the character names,
there are a few more points that I’d like to mention. So… might as well do them here.
The first tape we see from Dr. Weaver has a timecode at the top,
and once it gets to 11:59, it just resets back to 11:00 instead of moving
onto twelve. Probably just a glitch that no one noticed, I just found it kind of weird.
Then, also in the opening sequence when Gabriel is rampaging, there’s a child’s picture on the
wall depicting thunderclouds and lightning. That might just be a normal day for kids in Seattle,
but it could be connected to Gabriel's ability to manipulate electricity.
Then during the 2nd “break-in” that isn’t really a break-in, the camera circles around Madison,
and we see both sides of her head. This is a great setup for the big reveal of Gabriel, and
it makes his presence even more shocking. Blaming everything on an evil twin is one of the oldest
excuses in the book, but I guess this is one of those rare times where it is also actually the truth.
Sydney drives a Toyota Prius, which is a hybrid vehicle. Madison later drives this car as well.
Madison could be considered a hybrid of Gabriel and Emily May. Honestly,
it’s probably just product placement. I also thought that maybe the fact that Madison
and Gabriel have the same phone was a clue at one point, but then I realized,
literally everyone in the movie has this phone for some reason.
OK, so I already talked about the religious implications behind the name Gabriel. So
while this character is clearly linked to the supernatural, the other names in the story are
named after real things found in nature. Sydney’s last name is “Lake”, the female detective is
“Moss”, one of the doctors is “Fields”, and even “Shaw” is an English-Scottish name meaning “one
who dwells by the woods”. Sydney’s first name may also be an example, the name Sydney means “wide
meadow”; and Serena’s first name obviously means serene, clear and tranquil, all words
usually used to describe nature. Also, there’s a woman in jail who’s nickname is Scorpion.
That just leaves our main character, Madison Mitchell, whose birth name was Emily May.
Madison and May are both connected. Madison traditionally means “son of Matthew” while
May references the Goddess Maia, or the “Family of Matthew”. If for some reason
someone watching the movie knew that, it could be a clue that these characters are one in the same.
If you’re a fan of James Wan’s horror movies, like Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious and The
Conjuring you’re in luck, because I have a whole playlist with my analysys on his other works,
which you can find on the left. Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week,
ring the deathbell and select all notifications, and…
why do we always end it like this… I’ll see you in the next one, assuming we both survive.