Malignant

Malignant (original title: "Black Butterflies") is a cautionary tale about the nature of addiction and the technology to control our behavior that is rapidly becoming reality. This story makes use of the same technology as Michael Crichton's "The Terminal Man," but here focuses on the forced relationship between the patient with the moral weakness and the Machiavellian mad scientist willing to cross ethical and legal boundaries to perform his experiments.

The lead actors are worth mentioning: Gary Cairns as Allex plays sorrow very well, making the audience feel his loss, motivating his addiction. He and the script do a nice job portraying the bewilderment of a man being forced unwillingly into an experiment and learning with horror of the consequences. Sienna Farall's character brings a couple of rare moments of joy into the story, illustrating Allex's sorrow. I'd like to see Farall in more movies. Nick Nicotera's chad is written well as a nerd's nerd and the source of technology Allex uses rather cleverly to explore his predicament, but Nicotera's portrayal was rather wooden; maybe his character needed more back story. And Brad Dourif is the star of the show as the mad scientist. When the interactions between him and Allex kick into high gear, some of Dourif's performance seems a bit forced. Maybe his character needed more motivation or maybe the budget necessitated rushing the shooting schedule.

The story flows smoothly, with the characters having motivation for what they do and the story showing those motivations to the audience. The horror is just the right amount of graphic. Kudos to one scene near the end that shows exactly the horror of what's going on; great effects. Without spoiling too much of the plot: It's a good mix of action, violence, and social commentary, well filmed and tense to watch.

After the death of his wife, a grieving man becomes the victim of a horrific experiment to cure his addiction.

I don't give super reviews willy nilly.

I noted that this movie got one great review, one good review and one bad review.

It definitely deserves a good review.

Yes, there are some silly parts, but it kept my attention and I was interested in how it turned out.

Some scenes defy logic but it's a movie. And for that matter, a movie with a $2 mil budget.

What does Brad Doriff get? $200k? So he gets 10% of the funds?

It does a lot with a minuscule amount of money. The original title was way better. The ending is anti-climatic so it gets a 7.

A man goes through an ordeal of losing his wife to cancer and takes solace in a bottle. Brad Dourif plays a demented doctor who decides to help him fight his addiction using unorthodox methods. These methods involve cutting him open and planting the latest mind control equipment. His therapy is simple, if he drinks he'll blackout and wake up next to a dead body that he murdered (he's usually provided with a video of him doing it). If he doesn't drink he'll be fine of course, but that never is the case.

Dourif does a good job with the script he was given but it is a weak script. Most of it does seem far fetched but to each his own. It did remind me of Chop (2011) where the guy would wake up every morning with some body part cut off.

This film did have a couple of scenes where a punch type tool was inserted behind the eye and tapped into the brain. I did get a slight headache from that one.

Allex, understandably distraught at his wife's death, takes up the bottle. Now, after months living in a drunken haze, he finds himself in the midst of a fiendish plot by a nameless enigmatic voice (Genre mainstay, Brad Dourif) to rid him of his vice once and for all in this slow-burning little horror film.

Although Mr. Dourif is undeniably the 'highlight' of this film, that's my by default as the rest of the film is pretty awful. The main gist of the movie felt extremely padded and could've been told in 45 minutes tops to get rid of some needless repetition. As far as Brad films go, i'd put it way down with the abysmal "Junkyard Dog"

Sometimes, a realistic portrayal of a character just doesn't make for a compelling story. Our protagonist in this movie is an introverted, depressed man. He is realistically played as a very quiet and subdued person. I can appreciate this, but it is super boring to watch.