The Supernatural Horror Hidden Gem You Can Stream On Amazon
For fans of horror, nothing's better than finding a new title that delivers the goods. The problem is, the more horror you watch, the faster you run out of the truly great stuff. But even true horror aficionados still haven't seen every last hidden gem of the genre. Fortunately, we've got you covered.
"The Wailing" is a 2016 South Korean horror mystery that stars Kwak Do-won as Jong-goo, a small-town policeman who soon finds himself in over his head when a mysterious illness starts causing villagers to kill their families and his own young daughter, Hyo-jin (Kim Hwan-hee), to have a mental breakdown. The illness is soon blamed on an equally mysterious Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) who moves to the village and who some believe is actually a demon. Soon, Jong-goo realizes that he'll have to rely on both his investigative background as well as some more "untraditional" methods to get to the bottom of the town's growing mystery and save his daughter.
"The Wailing" currently holds an impressive 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a nearly perfect 99% critics score. It's available to stream now on Amazon Prime, and as its Rotten Tomatoes ratings suggest, it just so happens to be one of the best South Korean movies of all time and one of the best folk horror movies ever made.
The Wailing is a folk horror movie that keeps you guessing until the very end
The real strength of "The Wailing" is that it functions as a horror movie as well as a whodunnit. After the village's mysterious Japanese man is accused of being a demon, multiple other plausible suspects emerge, all of whom could be responsible for the series of killings, and writer-director Na Hong-jin does an effective job of keeping you guessing until the very end. When the true culprit is finally revealed, it manages to be a genuinely terrifying moment even if you were to correctly guess their identity ahead of time.
"The Wailing" also boasts strong performances from its cast. Kwak Do-won is perfect as the small-town cop who means well and just wants to protect his daughter, but who slowly becomes more and more unraveled as he tries to catch the person (or creature) responsible for all the mayhem. Jun Kunimura plays the village's suspected demon with a kind of quiet tranquility that's unnerving, and "The Wailing" is worth watching just for the scene where Jong-goo confronts him and smashes up his home all while he watches impassively.
Elsewhere, Hwang Jung-min plays a local shaman who's called in to perform various rituals to cleanse the village, and these scenes are so tense and scary that they're almost overwhelming. However, young Kim Hwan-hee might be the best of everyone in "The Wailing." Her turn as the enraged, slowly crumbling Hyo-jin is nothing short of astonishing.
Suffice it to say, we cannot recommend "The Wailing" highly enough. If you love horror, it's well worth checking out.