Why the Horror of ‘The Wailing’ Hinges on Ambiguity

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Welcome to The Queue — your every day distraction of curated video content material sourced from throughout the online. Right this moment, we’re watching a video essay that takes a have a look at how the 2016 South Korean horror movie The Wailing makes use of ambiguity to terrify us.

Regardless of being one of many best horror movies of the twenty first Century so far, The Wailing has a pair limitations to entry. The primary, and most evident, is that its runtime is sort of three hours lengthy. The second, associated, hurtle is that the movie manages to take care of and construct suspense for every minute of its 2h 36m size.

Written and directed by Na Hong-jin, The Wailing is the cinematic equal of suffocating throughout a short-haul flight. However that’s a part of the enchantment. A soul-crushing and stomach-churning nightmare, The Wailing tells of a mysterious illness that has struck a small, rural village within the mountainous woods of South Korea. The illness is sudden, rabies-like, and 100% deadly. Assigned to the case is Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won), a bumbling household man who turns into personally invested when his daughter contracts the illness. Quickly, Jong-goo finds himself wrapped up in a much more sinister conspiracy; a waking nightmare of shamanic rituals, ghostly visitations, and suspicious outsiders.

Because the video essay beneath argues, somewhat convincingly, the important thing to what makes The Wailing so darn scary is its use of ambiguity. It’s not that monsters or occasions are illegible or confused. As a substitute, the movie purposefully makes use of cinematic storytelling to control the viewers’s sense of actuality itself. From its progressive deployment of over-use horror tropes to modifying that deliberately hides clues in plain sight, The Wailing is a frightening however completely rewarding watch that lives as much as its identify.

The video bellow accommodates spoilers for The Wailing.

Watch “Ambiguous Horror of The Wailing”:

Who made this?

This video essay on how ambiguity is central to the horror of The Wailing is by Spikima Films, a Korean-Canadian who’s been dropping gems on YouTube since 2019. You’ll be able to subscribe to Spikima’s channel for extra unbelievable essays right here. And you may comply with them on Letterboxd right here.

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Associated Matters: Horror, South Korea, The Queue

Meg Shields is the standard farm boy of your goals and a senior contributor at Movie Faculty Rejects. She at present runs three columns at FSR: The Queue, How’d They Do That?, and Horrorscope. She can also be a curator for One Excellent Shot and a contract author for rent. Meg will be discovered screaming about John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur’ on Twitter right here: @TheWorstNun. (She/Her).