10 Awesome Characters Trapped In TERRIBLE Horror Movies

Malignant was one of the most fascinatingly divisive horror films of last year, and though reviews broadly praised its "campy" elements, let's be clear - James Wan's latest is freakin' terrible.

Though many have defended the film on the grounds that it's perhaps, maybe, possibly badly acted and horribly written on purpose, that doesn't really preclude the fact that the hokey dialogue and wooden performances are still a genuine slog to sit through.

Malignant only perks up whenever its shadowy villain Gabriel is on screen: a trenchcoat-wearing murderer who moves in eerily unnatural fashion and has quite the deranged backstory indeed.

The film's loopy third act reveals that Gabriel is actually the vestigial twin brother of protagonist Madison (Annabelle Wallis) - a tumour-like remnant which resides on the back of her skull which came to life after Madison suffered a traumatic head injury.

And so, Gabriel has been effectively hijacking Madison's body to carry out the killings, which also explains his jerky movements - being on the back of Madison's skull, he manipulates her limbs backwards.

If only the rest of Malignant were as entertainingly off-the-rails as its antagonist, because the remainder of the movie is charmlessly stupid, no matter how many might insist it's all a big elaborate joke on Wan's part. Bad filmmaking is bad filmmaking.