Ridiculous and horrific in equal measure, Malignant proves director James Wan will do anything he can to conjure a scare, even when his reach far exceeds his grasp.

There is no denying James Wan’s standing as the modern-day king of horror, with three popular horror franchises – Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring – all under his name. Malignant, the Australian filmmaker’s 11th directorial effort, most definitely feels like an amalgamation of his horror efforts, yet this Frankenstein is less then the sum of its parts. In fact, Malignant is one of Wan’s worst directed films yet, albeit one with a madcap zaniness that is damn near alluring, if only Wan didn’t take it all seriously.

Malignant stars Annabelle Wallis as Madison, a recently widowed nurse who begins to experience visions of a long-haired, black trench coat clad figure brutally murdering random victims. Of course, it doesn’t take long to establish a connection between the two. How Wan does so won’t be revealed here, yet to say it’s his most batshit crazy idea so far is a given.

So why doesn’t Malignant work? It all comes down to style and tone, with too much of the former and a crazy mess of the latter. Wan tries to evoke the craziness of the ‘80s “video nasty” monster movie splatter fest yet tries to do so with the sheen of his Conjuring movies. If there was ever a time for Wan to strip down his carefully constructed approach to filmmaking and aim for something more raw, more practical, more tongue-in-cheek, than Malignant would have been it.

Take the films monster as a prime example. A tall slender figure of long straggly hair and specific sense of style, he comes across as a knock-off from a Wachowski movie, as he bends and twists and parkours his way through a mass of slaughtered bodies in an unconvincing display of violence that belongs more in a superhero movie.

Wan does bring a sense of ambition here, to be sure. Many mainstream horror films have become formulaic (admittedly by Wan’s influence), so his eagerness to shake things up with a film as crazy as Malignant is appreciated. Yet Wan’s failure to fully commit to this wannabe throwback to exploitation era horror results in a horror film with a serious personality disorder and a lack of fright.