Delayed Reaction: The Wailing

Premise: A detective investigate a series of deaths in a small Korean town.

 

I'm starting to think that American film nerds have Korea blindness. Parasite opened the floodgate, but it's gone back for years. They lost their minds the year before for Burning. Train to Busan and The Handmaiden years before that. If a Korean movie makes its way to the US, it seems to be an automatic 'A' from people. I'm not entirely removing myself from this either. The hit rate of the Korean movies I've seen has been high. I tend to be a little lower than the consensus though. Except The Handmaiden. That movie fucking rules! I think this automatic enthusiasm for Korean films has finally burned me with The Wailing.

 

This movie is one of the top recommended horror movies that I've seen on lists lately that I hadn't seen yet. To a degree I get it. It's a pretty moody movie. There are a variety of scares. The mix between Christian and Korean mysticism is something new to me. It's well made and well-acted.

 

However, I don't understand how there aren't more complaints about the length. This movie is 2.5 hours and it really drags. It's not that I would've loved a 1.75h version of the movie. The exact mystery and type of scares aren't to my taste either. But, a shorter version of this movie certainly would've made me less spiteful of it by the end. It's hard to make long horror. The nature of the genre loses effectiveness over time. Not a lot of horror can sustain itself for 2.5 hours. In my opinion, The Wailing is an example of this. It spends a lot of time with red herrings and spinning the wheels that killed the momentum.

 

I guess I'll say this. The movie doesn't change as you watch it. It is what it is early on - more mystery than horror. You really can sample this movie for a bit and decide if it's to your liking. You don't need to hang on for 90-120 minutes to decide if the movie is for you.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend