The Wailing / Na Hong-jin

After watching Ringu, Dark Waters and A Tale of Two Sisters in close succession my night-time routine was permanently altered. I could no longer sleep in a room with an open door.

"Asian Black Long Haired Threshold Anxiety". You know what I mean - and if not, I have a grainy VHS you can borrow and pass on.

Anyway, out of self-preservation I have avoided J-Horror, and K-Horrror for a while. But the time has come to man up and deal with this shit.

Great Title terrible Poster.

So I watched The Wailing and survived to give you The Drowned Man's review.

"Highly praised" by Mark Kermode - mainly because it bears some similarities to The Exorcist (his favourite film EVER).

I was never a big fan of that movie because the kid wasn't scary and I am not Catholic. Nevertheless it is part of the HR Leavis Horror Canon and deserves respect.  It has some nice touches. Like early on when the downstairs lights flick off (well, it was spooky at the time).

The cinematography and direction are excellent. In my opinion however, it's use of ambiguity, suspense and delayed climax are sub-Polanski, Argento, Hitchcock or Chabrol. Basically its as flabby as an Irish Jesuit.

The Wailing is a weird homage/pisstake of The Exorcist. It is slow, filled with religious significance and utterly convinced by the concept of demonic evil. But, in terms of story and technique it couldn't be more different to Blatty's masterpiece.

Synopsis

A fat lazy provincial cop investigates a series of increasingly horrific mass-murders. A Japanese tourist is implicated. A strange physical disease spreads. The cop;s daughter appears to be infected, then seems to be possessed by a demon. A witchdoctor is called to exorcise the demon.

Up until this point the movie is bizarrely humorous and self-consciously "unscary". It's Carry on Witching, or a Last of the Summer Wine Halloween special. In Korean.

But then  it changes and becomes something really very strange.

I still can't work out exactly when this change occurs because the switch is so skillfully managed. The horror is so incrementally increased that it takes a while before the viewer realises the nature of the trap they have fallen into.

It feels only mildly disturbing for a long time... before suddenly sinking into bleak horror.. The confusion arises from the way the movie breaks cinematic conventions. Like a genuine nightmare, it changes its register and tempo until you really can't remember how it all started.

The film fuses body horror, zombie horror, supernatural horror and suspense in a way I have not encountered before.

The narrative twists in the story towards the end are unexpected and violently cruel.

Beautifully shot and acted. Of course its in translation, but that adds to the sense of the uncanny. It's half-Western/half-Oriental vision of Satanism is fucked up. I guess it symbolically draws upon a Korean "race-memory" of Japanese war atrocities.

Its also a very sad tale about fathers and daughters. And in some ways it is a traditional Eastern Ghost Story.

The Editorial Team of The Drowned Man recommends you watch it.