The Wailing [2016]

The Wailing [2016]
Original Title: Goksung
South Korea
Director: Hong-jin Na
My Rating: 7/10

I'll admit, I didn't understand everything upon viewing this film.  It's not David Lynch hard to follow, but there are cultural ideas of the supernatural and religion that I'm just not hip to.  I've read several explanations online, which I consider a victory for the film, because it left me wanting to know more.  Some of these explanations I read were written by Koreans, and they didn't all have the same interpretation, so it's fair to say that this an ambiguous story and can be categorized as a mystery.  Along with that there is horror and some comedy.

At it's core this is a religious story, good versus evil.  The only trouble is discerning which is which.  Your view of the characters will change drastically as more is revealed, and then someone will come along and throw a monkey wrench in that whole line of thinking.  This works because it's not done in a gimmicky unbelievable plot twist sort of way, but in a way that will make you think back to previous actions and see other motivations.

This movie is getting a lot of praise, but once again, I'm not really a fan of ghost stories.  Still, it's definitely a solid 7.  The acting is solid all the way through, it made me laugh, it has a lot going for it.  Not knowing for sure what's going on helps build the tension, I didn't even try to guess in the first 15 minutes like I typically do.  I would recommend this as a good introduction to Korean horror films.