Within the pantheon of Korean possession-horror media, director Na Hong-jin’s 2016 movie The Wailing (Goksung) shares an uncanny kinship with one other slept-on entry within the style. Positive, it’s obtained the standard fixings: a doe-eyed hero, a cynical aspect character not lengthy for this world, a sensible shaman, some form of demon, and the unfortunate member of the family the protagonist is tasked with saving from religious smash. However like Jang Jae-hyun’s 2024 movie Exhuma, The Wailing takes these acquainted hallmarks and injects them with actual postcolonial trauma—Japan because the x-factor in its paranoia-soaked horror—remodeling it into one of the haunting cinematic experiences, even in case you are divorced from the cultural splash zone of its deep-seated dread and prejudice.
The setting of The Wailing, like several good horror movie price its salt, is a quiet, remoted countryside city the place everybody is aware of everybody. Right here, a clumsy and comfortably lazy cop, who even his colleagues groan about working with, named Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won), instantly turns into necessary at work when a mysterious plague haunts the sequestered South Korean village. All anybody is aware of is that no matter ailment’s been possessing individuals has brought on them to go on a violent rampage, killing their family members and leaving them in a vegetative stupor. It’s a case Jong-goo is ill-equipped to resolve however is compelled to faucet into the peak of his deductive prowess—nevertheless unintended and hapless—to resolve the unusual incidence of their village when it claims his daughter. And all indicators level to the uncanny arrival of a Japanese foreigner, known as “Japanese Man” (performed by Jun Kunimura), of their village. However his presence, nevertheless sinister, is barely the tip of the iceberg of suspects behind the quiet city’s occult conspiracy.
When all of the horrors come dashing to Jong-goo’s doorstep, the mystique of The Wailing’s nesting dolls of mysteries braid collectively, making his paranoia seep from the display and enter the viewer’s personal consciousness. Alongside the way in which, The Wailing doesn’t lean on low cost leap scares to promote that sensorium of horror effervescent to the floor. As a substitute, it lingers. It hangs on pictures. It lets dread bloom within the distance as one thing terrible contorts simply far sufficient away to identify you, then moseys towards you at its personal tempo. It’s as becoming a metaphor as any for The Wailing‘s measured tempo. It builds dread not by way of noise, however by way of presence. And it’s actually good at it.
On the eye of the storm is Jong-goo—the bumbling policeman on the middle of all of it—who, alongside viewers, is aware of he’s heading in the right direction, not handwaving the case as a string of strung-out drug customers, however as one thing past a mountainous assortment of empirical proof. It doesn’t do him any favors that he’s going off a random nightmare of the Japanese man, making his man-who-cried-wolf case all of the extra perilous earlier than you take into accounts his wanton prejudice in opposition to the stranger being unhealthy for the believability of his over-the-top interrogations.
Layered into all this can be a Shogun-like discord round language. Jong-goo repeatedly hurls slurs on the Japanese man, who he’s 99 p.c certain is behind every part—a alternative that’s solely his, at the same time as his fellow officers hesitate to comply with his marching orders. All of the whereas, a priest, clearly in over his head, serves because the translator between Joon-goo—who’s treating recurring nightmares as proof—and the Japanese man, who’s visibly exhausted by having his admittedly cultish solitude disturbed. The language barrier turns into one other supply of paranoia, one other veil between reality and assumption. The Wailing delights in taking part in themes and motifs.
The movie owes its ominous ambiance to the collective powers of its solid: Kunimura because the enigmatic outsider, Chun Woo-hee because the eerie “Mysterious Lady,” and Hwang Jung-min because the smarmy shaman whose rituals throw one other wrench into the chaos. Their performances are a boon to the movie’s profitable, dizzying paranoia. Viewers are proper there with Jong-goo, like Peter Parker in No Approach Residence, spider-sense going haywire in a revolving room full of individuals smiling to his face whereas, in all probability, wishing him ailing. It’s the sort of paranoia-fueled horror the place hazard is perhaps staring you lifeless within the face or serving to you search for keys, regardless that they’re those who hid them.
It’s this friction between certainty and doubt, prejudice and paranoia, that makes The Wailing such an engrossing entry within the possession horror canon. It juggles so many spinning plates that don’t appear to suit collectively: half crime drama, half shamanistic fever dream. And but, it does. Neatly and devastatingly.
Its cinematography is exceptional. Each body emanates the air of leaving all of its eerie, stunning, and unhinged imagery on display. All within the effort of birthing a horror that wears an uneven face, slow-cooked in dread and juxtaposed in opposition to the oppressive quiet serenity of the countryside, the place risks could possibly be mendacity in wait among the many hills or contained in the matted houses of individuals you as soon as felt protected round.
The Wailing isn’t “elevated horror” or “cultural horror” in the way in which followers typically label movies that keep away from leap scares or dabble in uncomfortable politics. It’s a mysterious third factor that’s change into novel: genuineness. Hong-jin’s 2016 movie unflinchingly explores how prejudice, ego, and social standing can cloud judgment—particularly when somebody’s anticipated to readily and repeatedly resolve a thriller larger than themselves. And one way or the other, regardless of Jong-goo being a scumbag, you empathize with him. Not for the racism, clearly, however he’s a hero in his daughter’s eyes. Not as a result of he’s cop (he’s not), however as a result of he’s her dad. Father is God within the eyes of a kid. And the worry of failing her is so visceral, it permeates by way of the display and soaks within the viewers’ bones—even when his daughter’s puppeteered silhouette stands in doorways like dying itself.
By the point the movie crescendos into its Orpheus-esque finale, lots of its grotesque horrors have already sunk beneath the floor. What’s left is the undertow; a humongous wave threatens to tug viewers beneath with Jung-goo. After which, quietly, it leaves you with a sense that echoes louder than any scream: Evil doesn’t need to be insidious. Generally it simply lays out bait, not understanding what it’ll catch, reeling in no matter bites the road. Sussing out whether or not that evil is a perceived menace or a real one is the place issues get messy for Jong-goo, making The Wailing such a gem of a horror movie.
I’m not haughty sufficient to say I’ve absolutely unraveled The Wailing—or Exhuma, for that matter—and their shared excavation of postcolonial trauma between Japan and South Korea. However what lingers is unmistakable: a theme that capabilities like a one-way mirror—one which’s common in its reflection, and private in its sting. The Wailing picks at that scab, weaving apprehension and disorientation into one thing way more intimate. In all its chaos, it succeeded not simply as horror however as a deeply affecting crime drama in disguise. It’s a movie that haunts you lengthy after the credit roll, not as a result of it screams, however as a result of it speaks plainly. And what it says is terrifying.
The Wailing is streaming on Hulu.
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