"The Strangers" from Hong-Jin Na is a thriller horror film. We all remember the very good 2008 "The Chaser" from the same director who won best Director and best film at the 45th Grand Bell Awards. "The Chaser" is probably one of his best works to date and one of the best thriller horror movies of recent years. I strongly advise to give it a watch. But let's go back to "The Strangers" aka "The Wailing".
Release in 2016 the film depicts a series of strange events and the spread of a mysterious disease happening in a little South Korean village soon after the arrival of a Japanese stranger. The film begins with an excerpt from the Bible. Luke 24:38, to be precise: "Why are you troubled" Jesus asked, "and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself." Then we see the first shot involving a fisherman hanging worms on the hook of his fishing rod. Those details may seem unimportant but believe me they are the keys to understand this story of demonic possession and trickery between our revealed world and the hidden one.
In 156 minutes Hong-Jin Na explores through the eye of a policeman and his family the nature of men when face against irrational and obscure events. The result is a slow burning movie riddled with tension, horror, a sense of loss of control over the events but also funny parts and clownish characters who struggle to make sense of what is happening to them. If Life was a game where traps are set by hidden entities only for humans to fall into it, then "The Strangers" could be the very depiction of this game. The film bates us with the story of a bizarre stranger who seems confronted against racism only to reshuffle the cards half way with stories of bizarre strangers manipulating our belief or/and our superstitions and questioning the very nature of what we believe in. Nothing is what it seems to be...
"The Strangers" is not a perfect movie, too long, unbalanced, hesitating on what the film wants to be, it's probably one of Hong-Jin Na less controlled film. However this lack of control is largely offset by the originality of its subject, the questioning the movie leads to and the horror it inserts in our mind, on par if not more subtle than what "The Exorcist" proposed a few decades earlier. It's definitely not for everyone but if you like unsettling movies then "The Strangers" is for you and will leave you with one haunting question: do we really understand the true nature of God?
Review of The Wailing
