So, a Sion Sono movie finally happened to me. I know, I should have seen one of his films before now - and it's become clear to me exactly how long this guy has been around - but better late than never, right? And where better to start than his long-awaited collaboration with Nicholas Cage? Cage is in over-the-top cartoon character mode, playing a convict in a post-apocalyptic world who is coerced into undertaking a mission to retrieve a missing girl, Bernice (Sofia Boutella). The movie enthusiastically tries to live up to him.
The chief joys of "Prisoners of Ghostland" are in its worldbuilding. The post-apocalyptic world of Sion Sono consists of a mostly intact Samurai Town, ruled over by the corrupt Governor (Bill Moseley) and his enforcer Yasujiro (Tak Sakaguchi). Not too far away is the "Ghostland," inhabited by roving bands of evil mutants and an oddball group of outcasts, led by the bookish Enoch (Charles Glover) and priestess Chimera (Cici Zhou). Samurai Town is a mixture of western frontier town and geisha district, full of eye-popping colors and stylized images. The Ghostland is Sono's take on a "Mad Max" style desert wasteland, with similarly incredible costuming and production designs. There are "rat men" who salvage and construct machinery. There are catatonic depressives who encase themselves in mannequin parts.
So, it's a terrible shame that none of this gonzo excess is much fun. Sono is constantly tripped up by the awful English language dialogue and the half-baked characters. Way too much time is taken up by the Governor's "granddaughter" Susie (Yuzuka Nakaya), a crazed victim of all these bad men in power, who has regressed to childhood - and the performance is just awful. To make matters worse, the film's pace is punishingly slow, and there's not much action until very late in the story. Cage's character is haunted by his past, specifically a bank heist he carried out with his former partner Psycho (Nick Cassavetes), that resulted in a massacre. The recurring image from this event is an exploding gumball machine that sends candy flying everywhere in hypnotic slow motion. And that's really the metaphor for the whole movie - beautiful pieces of genre candy bouncing around, making a mess, that you don't get to enjoy as it was intended.
Now, on to James Wan's "Malignant."
A woman named Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis) suffers a supernatural attack that kills her abusive husband Derek (Jake Abel) and her unborn baby. The killer, a psychiatric patient named Gabriel (Marina Mazepa and Ray Chase), has an array of powers including electrical manipulation, super strength, and a strange psychic bond to Madison. On the case are a pair of detectives, Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White), while Madison and her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) look into clues from Madison's past to try and find Gabriel.
"Malignant" is a film that relies totally on its third act twist, and it's a good enough twist, executed with enough enthusiasm that I think many horror and action movie fans will enjoy it. However, it does take ninety minutes to get there, and those ninety minutes are pretty dire stuff. They reminded me of nothing so much as a sub-par episode of "The X-files," except without any strong characters to follow and a strange lack of atmosphere. "Malignant" is pretty slick and flashy for a film that's supposed to be horror - well, I suppose it's less straightforward horror and more of a creepy creature feature. The biggest issue is really the cast. Madison and the detectives are pretty thinly written, but I think stronger actors could have breathed more life into them.
What we're left with is the monster, Gabriel, who isn't all that original as far as monsters go, but James Wan finds enough interesting body horror angles and fun images to help him make a heluvah impression. The best scenes in the movie are the action set pieces, and "Malignant" would have been so much more enjoyable if there had been more of them. I'm all for a good, slow buildup, but in this case, the more monstrosity, the better. I wouldn't mind seeing Gabriel again, but in a movie that is maybe half an hour of buildup and ninety minutes of thrills next time.
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