The Medium (2021)

Slower than cold molasses in winter time....

Similar to the American film 'The exorcism of Emily Rose' which combines the horror genre with courtroom drama, 'The Medium' tries to combine the horror genre with biography/reality tv. I say try because I think it failed in generating sufficient interest or traction in either of it's intended genres.

Let us first tackle the 'horror' portion of the movie and all it's entailed expectations. The premise of the movie is interesting, we have a camera crew that is following a 'medium/psychic' who is purported to be possessed by one of the local Gods. As we follow her life, we are introduced to a her family members and the complicated family dynamics. This portion of the movie narrative takes almost 45 mins. Even I can introduce my family in lesser time and I have 21 first cousins.

Anyway after the sluggish introductions we delve deeper into the character of the medium's niece who I must say portrayed her character pretty well. We are one hour 10 minutes into the movie and I am yet to be scared. The creep factor of this movie is extremely slow. This would be acceptable if 'The Medium' was a thriller but it isn't and it is also not capable of keeping the audience engaged cause it's first half is extremely boring. As one of the reviewers previously mentioned, the first half could have been compressed into 12-15 minutes.

Unfortunately things don't get any better after one hour. While the story of possession becomes proven and the nieces antics become crazier there very little horror. It's more of a supernatural intent and horrific fascination with which we watch the behaviour of a possessed person. There are some scare-inducing moments, but when a movie is over 2 hours the moments feel extremely minuscule.

What fails this movie is also it's train wreck of an ending which begins half hour before the ending credits and just like the sluggish pace of it's intro, is slow but devolves into a complete parody. While 'The Medium' suffered from a sluggish plot line and inconsistent pacing, it was the farcical ending which was the final nail in it's coffin.

Now, speaking of the biography/reality tv portion of this movie it was majorly passive. The camera crew did not communicate much in terms of the story progression in the first one and half hour. When the story started picking up about monitoring the possessed person the camera crew started communicating with the possessed's family regarding the footage and the last half hour they were as active as the rest of the cast. I felt their presence was superfluous because if the intent was to gain a third-party perspective, there should have been more interactions between the camera crew and the audience/viewers since, the movie is what they 'filmed'. So I am confused whether this was actually supposed to be found footage horror in which case this is nowhere near 'Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum' standards. There was zero audience engagement with respect to this theme.

Overall:
The scares are relatively low and the movie is more into the depiction of gory or revolting behaviour. The pace is beyond sluggish with a smattering of interesting incidences. Overall, this movie could benefit from some serious editing and compression into a standard one/one-half hour movie. So would I recommend anyone to watch this? No. But if you are interested in the show be ware of the first half. This scores a 6.5/10 in my book.

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Without a doubt, The Medium is absolutely one of the most creepiest film I watched last year.

As a person who was born in Southeast Asia, it's no stranger to shamanism, regardless of whether you have used his services or not, but at least you must have heard stories or seen people who are victims of shamanic practices. I myself belong to the group who have only seen people affected by this shaman's witchcraft, the victims are from my own family but thankfully my brother has recovered.

With that experience, the film feels relatable and it's easier for me to follow the plot, moreover, I often hear this type of story when hanging out with friends and will never get bored.

The film itself tells about a group of Thai documentary team traveling to the northeast part of Thailand, Isan to document the daily life of a local medium, Nim, who is possessed by the spirit of Bayan. Bayan is an ancestral God and has been possessing women in Nim's family for generations.

Then later the film will focus on Nim's niece, Ming. After a lot of strange things happen to Ming, Nim is initially convinced Bayan wishes Ming to succeed Nim, but it turns out not to be what the characters and even me expected.

This film is well-construct, in the first 1 hour, we are stuffed with information about the characters from Nim's shamanism to the misfortunes that always happen to the Noi family, while setting the atmosphere and tension which will really serve as provisions for the last 1 hour.

In the last 1 hour Banjong gradually started trying to scare, especially with Ming who was possessed by an evil spirit who was described as so wicked because it was said that all kinds of spirits entered Ming's body, so yeah she really pushed as a nightmare source here. They also include a Paranormal Activity-style segment before exorcising Ming which honestly gives me goosebumps. But the peak moment is when the exorcism begins, all I can say is that confidence is turned to despair.

Kudos to all the cast, they are really did a good job as a medium for transmitting fear, especially Narilya Gulmongkolpech as Ming, started as cute good looking girl (I thought I fall for her in funeral scene) to creepy-sick looking girl (WTF, I shocked), her appearance change which is also accompanied by a change in her acting from a cheerful girl to a scary girl, I honestly think she is really cool, deserve to be praise.

Banjong Pisanthanakun, undeniably that he is indeed a director who is good at making films; from horror, romance to comedy genres. It's a shame that in the past 5 years he has only directed 2 titles. We need more from you Mr. Banjong.

The only thing I don't like from this film was the cameraman of this documentary team seems weird, they did take pretty good shot but did the documentary cameraman have to keep shooting even though someone in front of him needed help? or what's a little annoying here is when the cameraman is asked by a monk or someone to just check on Ming's aunt's son but he hesitates and doesn't even help that someone prevent the aunt from doing **Confidential**.

Overall, a pretty good found footage horror films, also from asia. Nice.

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