10 Best Movie Deaths Of 2021

James Wan's Malignant is one hell of a wild ride, for better and for worse, climaxing with the absolutely ludicrous reveal that the killer, Gabriel, is the vestigial remnants of protagonist Madison's (Annabelle Wallis) twin brother, who resides within her skull attached to her brain and spinal cord. Right.

Gabriel has been committing the killings by taking control of Madison's body, and because he's attached to the back of her skull, he has to manipulate Madison's body backwards, explaining why "Gabriel" moves in such a strange, unnatural way.

This all comes to a head when Madison is arrested and thrown in lockup with dozens of other criminals in the movie's third act.

When her fellow inmates attack her, Gabriel emerges, launching a brutal rampage where he rips a chunk of a woman's neck out, breaks the arm of another, impales one through the chest with "his" hand, stomps one of their heads into a fine paste, and dispatches the instigator of the group (regular Tarantino stunt performer Zoe Bell) by gouging her eyes out and using her as a human shield when a cop opens fire.

After Gabriel escapes from lockup, though, the mayhem continues, Gabriel using his bladed weapons to slice his way through a fleet of armed cops in delightfully acrobatic fashion.

Malignant is a terrible movie in a lot of respects, but it's tough not to applaud Wan's commitment to the absurdity of his premise here.