Review #270: The Wailing (2016)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #24 - The Wailing (2016)

The Wailing is a Korean film about Jong-goo, a detective investigating a rash of bizarre and brutal murders across the countryside in his small village. While at first the murders all seem linked by a strange skin disease suffered by the attackers, Jong-goo hears tales of a local Japanese immigrant being somehow connected. When following this lead, Jong-goo's daughter seemingly becomes infected by the disease, but a renowned shaman claims she's possessed by a demon, and attempts a ritual to drive the demon out. At the same time the Japanese man is performing a ritual that seemingly brings a dead man back to life as a zombie, Jong-goo rounds up a posse to go kill the Japanese man but they fight the zombie instead, then they accidentally kill the Japanese man by hitting him with their car, but then it seems like the Japanese man wasn't actually involved and instead there's this mysterious woman in white who seems connected instead, then the shaman gets attacked by moths while trying to flee and then Jong-goo finds the mysterious woman in white and she warns him not to go home but he goes home anyway and finds out his daughter has killed the rest of his family and then the Japanese man apparently isn't dead and maybe he's a demon now and the shaman was in on it or something?

Look, this is the third time I've tried watching this movie. The first time it was given extremely high praise by a family member, but I was only able to get about half an hour into it before I lost interest because it seemed like it was just a bunch of unconnected events that didn't seem interesting enough to keep me hooked. A few months later I tried watching it a second time because I heard a ton of other people singing its praises, telling me it gets good after the first half hour, so I started over and got an hour in and it still felt like a bunch of unconnected events and I lost interest. There was actually supposed to be a different movie on my list for tonight but I'd already reviewed it in a past year, so I thought, "Hey, I'll put the Wailing on there, then I'll be forced to stick it out til the end". Only today did I realize that this movie is TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-SIX MINUTES LONG, and for all of the claims that this movie "eventually gets really really good", I sat through all two hours and thirty-six minutes, paying close attention the entire time to make sure I didn't miss anything, and you know what? I still feel like it was a bunch of unconnected events that didn't keep my interest. If I didn't have to write a review on this one I would have given up once I saw I still had over an hour left and I still didn't care about any bit of it.

I don't know if something is wrong with me or what, because constantly this movie felt like it was giving me "clues" or "answers" except I didn't know what any of those "clues" or "answers" were meant to indicate. Like when Jong-goo first arrives at the Japanese man's house and his partner finds a hidden room with a bunch of photos of the victims in it. What was this supposed to indicate? The movie treats it as proof that he was responsible, but... how? One of the photos shown closely was clearly taken by one of the crowd of onlookers while the police were conducting their investigation. How is that proof of anything? And near the end, when Jong-goo meets the mysterious woman in white, he notices she has his daughter's hair clip, and a sweater seen on a woman earlier in the film. What was this supposed to indicate? Was it a sign that she was responsible for the possession/murders, or was it a sign that she was (according to IMDB) trying to protect people from the possession/murders? I have no clue, except for the aforementioned fact that the IMDB trivia says the latter. (But it didn't work, so why should I believe that?) Similarly, there's a scene where the shaman is seen wearing the same kind of undergarments as the Japanese man, which IMDB seems to suggest is "foreshadowing" that the two are in cahoots. (Since when do people wear the same underwear when they're working together? I noticed that similarity on this latest viewing but I assumed that if it was meant to be an indication of anything, it was an indication that both men were religious practitioners and this was some kind of a ceremonial underwear. So I literally cannot even tell what's supposed to mean what even when I'm really trying.) Maybe there's some sort of a cultural barrier here that's making all of these "clues" or "answers" go over my head, but all of the many glowing recommendations I got in favor of this film were from the same culture as me, so I legitimately don't understand what everyone else saw in this movie that I didn't.

This movie was incredibly long and felt extremely muddled in what message it was trying to get across. The Japanese man is bad, but then he's good, but then he's bad, but then he's good, but then he's bad again, but then he's maybe not bad, but then ooh he IS bad! And the woman in white is weird, but then she's normal, but then she's bad, but then she's good, then she's weird again, but then I can't tell if she was supposed to be bad or good, but someone else is bad so I guess it's indicating that she was good. The shaman is good, but then it seems he's bad, but then something bad happens to him so it seems like he's good again, and I feel like the movie is trying to tell me he was bad in the end but like... I don't understand how or why. And what was the deal with the skin condition that all of the murderers have? Did the demon possession somehow cause a skin disease? Was there a demon possession at all? Was it actually psychedelic mushrooms all along?

All of these could be interesting questions to have left unanswered after a short film, or one or two of them at the end of a normal-length film. But this movie was TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-SIX MINUTES LONG and I can't even tell how the events were connected, let alone what caused them.

I do not recommend this film. I don't care how many people told you it was amazing, I'm telling you it isn't. If you watch the first half hour and you don't like it you aren't going to like the next TWO HOURS.

Overall Rating: 2/10 Outdoor Barrels of Soy Sauce

Alternate Recommendation: If you want to watch a movie about maybe-maybe-not demon possession that DOESN'T jerk you around with unrelated nonsense for TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-SIX MINUTES, I suggest you try watching The Last Exorcism (2010) instead.