“The Medium” Theatrical Poster
Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun
Cast: Sawanee Utoomma, Narilya Gulmongkolpech, Sirani Yankittikan, Boonsong Nakphoo
Running Time: 130 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Any fan of cinema has certain names they follow regardless of the genre they work in, and for me South Korean director Na Hong-jin is one of them. Since arriving on the scene with the 2008 serial killer thriller The Chaser, Hong-jin hasn’t exactly been prolific. He’d stay in thriller territory for 2010’s The Yellow Sea, then disappeared for 6 years before returning with the horror The Wailing in 2016. At the time of writing in 2022, he’s yet to helm a 4th movie, but if he only leaves the 3 movies as a director, then every one of them has left a distinct mark on the Korean cinema landscape. Because of his relative elusiveness it’s always cause for excitement when Hong-jin’s name becomes attached to a new project, so when it was announced that he’d come up with the original story and would be producing a Thai horror movie, the uniqueness of the proposition built up a suitable level of anticipation.
That movie arrived in 2021 in the form of The Medium, a rare co-production between Thailand and Korea (the last one I can think of is 2011’s The Kick, which I’m sure everyone would rather forget). Any production that has to market itself as “From the producer of xxx” is usually a red flag, but thankfully The Medium doesn’t need to resort to such tactics, as in the director’s chair is Banjong Pisanthanakun, one half of the directorial duo who made the 2004 horror classic Shutter. Pisanthanakun has largely stayed within the horror realm in subsequent years, which has included helming segments in the horror anthologies Phobia (and its sequel) and The ABCs of Death. Ironically, one of the few times he strayed outside of horror was the 2010 romantic comedy Hello Stranger, which was shot on location in Korea.
The Medium initially starts off by looking to blur the line between reality and fiction. Onscreen text (presented in both Thai and Korean) tells us that in 2018 a documentary team wanted to study shamans in Thailand, and came across a middle-aged seamstress living in a rural village in the northern part of the country. The seamstress also happens to be a shaman, acting as an earthly vessel for a spirit that’s resided in a member of her family from generation to generation. Played by Sawanee Utoomma (One Day, The Promise), we learn that she inherited the spirit after her sister apparently rejected the signs that indicated she was the chosen one for this generation.
When the documentary team follow Utoomma to attend the funeral of her sister’s husband, both she and the crew notice the strange behaviour of her niece, played by Narilya Gulmongkolpech (making her big screen debut). Utoomma surmises that her behaviour is a sign that the spirit which resides in her may have chosen its next vessel. For the documentary team the timing presents a rare opportunity to capture the process of inheriting a spirit to become a shaman, leading the focus of the narrative to switch from that of Utoomma to Gulmongkolpech. However the niece’s mother, played by newcomer Sirani Yankittikan, is as against her daughter becoming a shaman as she was herself, and goes to dangerous lengths to avoid receiving the spiritual inheritance. Such actions lead down an increasingly dark path, as the spirit world begins to bleed into the real world with disastrous results for those involved.
There’s a distinct feeling while watching The Medium that Na Hong-jin wanted to supplant the supernatural themes of his own The Wailing into the shamanistic beliefs and rituals of Thailand, and during the initial scenes this shift works well. If you weren’t aware it was a movie beforehand the opening talking head interviews involving Utoomma could easily be taken for a legitimate documentary, and the sparse use of music along with talk of the spirit world begins to instil a gradual sense of creeping dread. However in the grand scheme of the 130-minute runtime, these scenes are ultimately inconsequential aside from setting a foreboding mood, one which gradually dissipates as the emergence of the plot involving Gulmongkolpech’s spiritual inheritance begins to take precedence.
The result is one that proves detrimental to an initially promising opening, sending The Medium into an overly long exercise in found footage horror that falls foul of just about every criticism that can be levelled towards the genre. Just as problematic as the approach though, is the change in focus to Gulmongkolpech. A relative newcomer to acting, having only played supporting roles in a handful of local Thai soap operas prior to what’s essentially a leading turn here, her performance lacks any of the real terror and fear it’s clearly supposed to instil in the audience. A turn of events basically turns The Medium into another tried and tested possession horror, with Gulmongkolpech’s expressions ranging from “staring blankly into the corner of the ceiling” (the pre-possession phase) to “smiling manically in every scene I appear in” (once the possession takes hold).
It’s the pre-possession part of the narrative that takes up a disproportionately large chunk of the middle section, as we spend time with Utoomma and her attempts to exorcise Gulmongkolpech of whatever it is that’s attacking her. While Pisanthanakun successfully introduces elements of mystery during these sequences, more than once a plot thread is left frustratingly hanging without a resolution, or at worse, concludes as a red herring that has no bearing on the main plot whatsoever. As a result the sense of momentum that’s been building grinds to a halt more than once, impacting the overall pacing to the point that there are parts of The Medium that come close to boredom setting in.
Almost as if the producers are aware of the same, as the finale approaches we get a 5-night countdown to a planned exorcism ritual, during which we’re told the documentary crew are given permission to set up cameras in the house Gulmongkolpech is being kept in. Rather than space out these nights, instead we get a literal countdown of each night in one go, immediately followed by a corresponding ‘found footage horror flick’ highlight reel, in which each night we get to see Gulmongkolpech up to some mischief. It’s worth noting that for those dog lovers out there, this sequence may be one you’ll want to skip, however other than that it’s surprisingly unremarkable. If the most terrifying thing someone who’s possessed can do is make a mess of the house by throwing stuff around and pee on the table, then it’s hard to feel that there’s too much at stake.
The finale itself opts to go completely over the top in a way which is as far from the opening scenes as one can imagine. An extended denouncement throws in an overly enthusiastic exorcist (played by Boonsong Nakphoo from Tum Yum Goong 2), a possessed group of cannibalistic zombies, Gulmongkolpech grinning, and a documentary crew showing an alarming willingness to continue filming even when it makes sense to run for your life. The whole sequence feels like it’s probably supposed to convey a chaotic scene of madness and horror similar to what Na Hong-jin made look so effortless in The Wailing, however here it feels overwhelmingly forced and dumb.
Would I think The Medium was any better if it I didn’t know Na Hong-jin’s name was attached to it? I doubt it. While the potential is there for a tale that really gets under your skin and disturbs, onscreen it’s clumsily handled, and the found footage angle becomes a bigger problem the more the narrative stumbles forward. If you want to see a Thai horror, then stick with Pisanthanakun’s best work Shutter. If you want to see a Korean horror, check out The Wailing. Much like The Medium of the title acts as an intermediary between the real and spiritual worlds, so the production itself feels stuck between 2 film industries, and something got lost in translation.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10
