Director James Wan explains how his new film, Malignant, is actually the horror version of Frozen. Disney's 2013 animated film was a massive success upon its release and has proven an enduring favorite, with sisters Anna and Elsa quickly becoming some of the studio's most popular characters. Wan's film, meanwhile, released both theatrically and on HBO Max on September 10 of this year.
Malignant's premise concerns a young woman named Madison (Annabelle Wallis) who, after a home invasion that kills her abusive husband and causes her to miscarriage, begins to see visions of a mysterious figure committing murder. When she discovers that these murders are really happening, she is forced to revisit her past from before she was adopted, and reawaken memories about her supposedly imaginary friend named Gabriel. What follows, as anyone who has seen it can attest, is an absolutely bonkers plotline that has inspired divisive reactions from both critics and audiences.
At first glance, it might seem strange to put Malignant and Frozen in the same conversation at all, but that's just what Wan has done in a quote from comicbook.com. Openly discussing his film's twist ending, the horror director says he was interested in exploring the bond between adopted siblings through Madison and her sister, Sydney (Maddie Hasson), and his story co-writer Ingrid Bisu wanted to tell a love story. The end result, he says, is a lot like Frozen:
Here you have a story about Madison with her own blood relation, her own blood sibling, which was Gabriel, who turns out to be a horrible person. But yet her adopted sister, not blood relation in any way, is actually the one that she has the most connection with. That is the one that is the most loving. And I felt like that was such a cool story to come at it from that perspective.
And for Ingrid, she loves the idea of telling a love story, but it's not a romantic story between the two leads. It's a love story between the two sisters. And I love that. I haven't quite seen that in a horror movie at least to this degree. And it's funny that we jokingly refer to it as, it's like the horror version of Frozen. It's like Anna and [Elsa]. But it really is like the horror version of Frozen. It's sisterly love, it's sisterly bond. And one of the many themes that the film deal with is the idea that can you be close to the people that you don't necessarily share blood relation with? And what we want to kind of say in this film is it's possible.
Wan goes on to say that Madison spends Malignant wanting the blood connection she thought she was missing, and ends up finding that in Gabriel, whose relationship to her is literally parasitic. Ultimately, she realizes she already had the bond she was looking for in Sydney, and that she had chosen her over Gabriel long ago. "And we just felt like that was something that was important for the film," says Wan.
The emphasis on sibling relationships is clear in the film, and the sisterly love between Madison and Sydney proves crucial to how Malignant resolves its twisty third act. Wan's emphasis on adopted relationships also shows the resonance of having Madison's birth mother there to witness the Elsa-and-Anna moment between them, but keeping her a distant observer. So, there are indeed a few parallels between Malignant and Frozen - though fans of Disney's modern classic should make sure they can stomach some gnarly body horror before they see for themselves.
Source: comicbook.com