James Wan’s 2021 horror hit Malignant went from being merely good to memorably great thanks to one campy two-minute scene. Already an entertaining modern horror movie with a unique mystery at its core, Malignant swerved from a solid slasher film to an elite body horror/creature feature combo thanks to its now-famous jail scene.
In the movie, Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis) is plagued by what she thought was a killer from her past, but she discovers that the entity she fears actually inhabits her own body. This is revealed to the audience with an incredible action sequence that takes place in a women’s prison. In a span of two minutes, Malignant pivots the tone of the movie drastically with extreme violence and gore, body horror and a full-on creature reveal. Since the movie’s release, the jail scene has gained notoriety as one of the more fun and shocking scenes in recent horror, and the campiness is what made it so memorable.
Why Malignant’s Jail Scene Was So Campy
The jail scene in Malignant approaches Evil Dead-levels of camp, which is what makes it so unique and so entertaining. Right off the bat, the tone is set by Madison’s antagonists, two tough inmates who for some reason are sporting an outrageous, full-bodied mullet and a ’70s-era afro, complete with disco attire. From there, the camp only accelerates, as Madison gruesomely peels apart the skin of her own skull to reveal Gabriel, her parasitic twin.
Gabriel’s grotesque appearance, bursting from Madison’s own brain matter, is shockingly effective and gross, especially when combined with his haunting shriek. The body horror camp shifts into overdrive as Gabriel takes control of Madison’s body with a series of bone-cracking sound effects and contorted limbs. The last piece of the campy puzzle is the extreme violence and gore that accompanies Gabriel’s slaughter of the inmates. Inexplicable superhuman strength allows Gabriel to snap arms and necks, and even punch through one woman’s torso. In a span of just two minutes, the entire tone of Malignant shifts from thriller mystery to camp horror.
How The Jail Scene Helps Set The Absurd Tone Of Malignant
Malignant marked a return to horror for James Wan as a director, as he had been away from the genre for the previous five years while helming Aquaman and working on other projects. Responsible for some of the best horror films from the last decade, Wan likely wanted to return with a splash given how jarring the twist executed in the jail scene is. Up until that point in the film, Malignant feels like a solid, albeit average horror film with a mysterious villain at its center. The jail scene helped push the film into an entirely different genre of horror, and make it that much more memorable in the process.
The absurd tone set by the jail scene received praise from many horror authorities — even Stephen King praised Malignant. While some critics didn’t appreciate the bait-and-switch or even the absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic premise at its core, Malignant still garnered plenty of acclaim upon its release and is already on its way to developing cult classic status. The jail scene and the twist it reveals are almost single-handedly responsible for the positive reviews of the movie, and if a sequel to Malignant comes to be, it will be because of that outrageous, campy swerve.
