The Medium (2021)
Genre: Horror
Duration: 129 minuten
Alternative titles: Rang Zong / ร่างทรง
Country:
Thailand
Directed by: Banjong Pisanthanakun
Stars: Narilya Gulmongkolpech, Sawanee Utoomma and Sirani Yankittikan
IMDb score:
6,5 (17.788)
Releasedate: 14 July 2021
The Medium plot
"A story about shamanism in Thailand."
In Isaan, the goddess Ba Yan is worshipped. For generations, a family enlists a female member to act as the goddess's shaman. Currently, the young heiress Mink fulfills this role. However, her health suddenly deteriorates and she exhibits strange behavior - all cause for concern to her family. It seems that Mink is possessed by an evil god.
Reviews & comments
Seam
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- 1001 messages
- 2330 votes
Not very special, certainly not considering the earlier work of Pisanthanakun. Pretty standard possessed movie. The film opens strongly with an interesting, surprising focus on drama. The various main characters are well zoomed in and they are well explored. Unfortunately, the standard developments of an possession film come quite quickly and that is disappointing. The lock is strong again, albeit with some predictable (yet effective) jump scares. The atmosphere also gets stronger and it ends surprisingly grand.
The acting of the extras is notably more often disappointing (which makes some moments more comical than exciting), but the main cast does a pretty good job.
Only recommended for fans of the subgenre or those who can't find another movie for a faster horrorfix.
2.75 star with rounding up due to a nice finale and some reasonable plot developments.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
In 2018, a film crew travels to Thailand for a film about a Nim [Sawanee Utoomma], the shaman of the goddess Ba Yan who has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Nim's younger sister Noi [Sirani Yankittikan] was actually destined to become a shaman, but she ritually rejected Ba Yan's spirit. When Nim's daughter Mink [Narilya Gulmongkolpech] begins to exhibit behavior befitting a spirit transfer, her mother initially thinks that Nim should relinquish the spirit. But Nim suspects that another, less sympathetic spirit may be at play. Begins convincingly as a documentary, with extensive attention to Nim's spiritual culture and family history, gradually creating an atmosphere reminiscent of (and regularly as effective as) The Exorcist. Subtle tension abounds, but also some extraordinarily tense moments. Gulmongkolpech is fantastic as the troubled daughter.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Shadowed
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- 11421 messages
- 6719 votes
Long-drawn-out horror film that constantly goes in a different direction, but keeps changing the same direction when it finally starts to get fun. Nevertheless, I was curious about this much-discussed film from Thailand, but the result was especially disappointing. As far as I'm concerned, Pisanthanakun takes on too much hay and tries all kinds of horror in a single 129-minute film. It feels too full, and even with a full movie, the pace is impossible to get ahead. The scares hardly catch on and the atmosphere does not burn well. Fortunately, the film looks well cared for, which makes it feel like they really tried. The acting is decent, but the film is nowhere exciting, atmospheric or crazy shocking enough. I don't doubt the qualities of Pisanthanakun by the way. He will be able to deliver quite nice work in the future, so hopefully his experiment is now over and he will stick to a single horror style.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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