Tagline
“The devil lives in the mountains. Or does he?”
The Review
Na Hong-jin's The Wailing is a two-and-a-half-hour South Korean horror epic that combines murder mystery, demonic possession, and shamanic ritual into one of the most ambitious and confounding horror films of the decade. Kwak Do-won plays a bumbling small-town cop investigating a series of gruesome murders linked to a mysterious Japanese stranger. The film defies categorization, shifting between dark comedy, procedural thriller, and apocalyptic supernatural horror with breathtaking confidence. The shamanic ritual sequence is one of the most intense extended set pieces in horror history. The ending will haunt you.
Fun Fact
The film went through over 13 script revisions across six years of development. Jun Kunimura, who plays the Japanese stranger, also appeared in Tarantino's Kill Bill. Na Hong-jin deliberately structured the film to make audiences question which characters were truly evil, and opinions remain divided years later.
Score Breakdown
Total Score
20/30
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