Release The Wailing was released in South Korea on 12 May 2016. The film was shown in the Out of Competition section at the
Cannes Film Festival in France on 18 May and was released in the United States on 27 May. On review aggregator website
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Jada Yuan of
Vulture described the film as "operating on a level that makes most American cinema seem clunky and unimaginative". Anton Bitel of
Little White Lies commented: "By turns funny and despairing, this village noir brings the horror of uncertainty." Leah Pickett of
Chicago Reader stated: "The film justifies its epic length, meshing ancient east Asian mythology and rituals (village gods, exorcisms by shamans) with more recognizable horror tropes (demonic possession, zombification, the devil represented by a black dog and rams' heads) in a way that feels novel and unpredictable. The actors are uniformly strong..." Phil Hoad of
The Guardian wrote: "The layers of dissembling and self-dissembling pile up so thickly that not only does Na evidently touch on something integral about the nature of evil, but actually seems to be in the process of summoning it before your eyes."
Financial Times's Nigel Andrews wrote: "Very crazy, very Korean, very long: 156 minutes of murder, diabolism, exorcism and things that go bump by day and night". Clark Collins of
Entertainment Weekly gave the film B+ grade, stating: "Despite its epic length,
The Wailing never bores as Na slathers his tale with generous supplies of atmosphere and awfulness". Jason Bechervaise of
Screen Daily noted: "
The Wailing is initially set up as a thriller and the supernatural setting also helps deliver moments akin to a horror feature, particularly when a strange woman (Chun Woo-hee) first appears. But the film's gradual progression into something more sinister puts a different spin on Na's masterful use of pacing". Jacob Hall of
/Film commented: "
The Wailing as it exists would involve burning the very structure of a traditional western movie to the ground. It's why the movie is so great and it's also why a remake seems so strange". Deborah Young of
The Hollywood Reporter added: "As dark and pessimistic as the rest of South Korean thrill-master Na Hong Jin's work,
The Wailing (Goksung, a.k.a.
The Strangers in France) is long and involving, permeated by a tense, sickening sense of foreboding, yet finally registers on a slightly lower key than the director's acclaimed genre films
The Chaser (2008) and
The Yellow Sea (2010), both of which also got their start in Cannes." Maggie Lee of
Variety noted: "There's nothing scarier than not knowing what you should be scared of. "The Wailing" erupts with a string of gruesome deaths in an insular village, but the investigation unleashes a greater terror — that of the paranoid imagination." David Ehrlich of
IndieWire stated: ""The Wailing" boasts all the tenets and tropes of a traditional horror movie, but it doesn't bend them to the same, stifling ends that define Hollywood's recent contributions to the genre. The film doesn't use sound to telegraph its frights a mile away (there are no jump scares, here... well, maybe one), nor does it build its scenes around a single cheap thrill. On the contrary, this is horror filmmaking that's designed to work on you like a virus, slowly incapacitating your defenses so it can build up and do some real damage. There's a looseness here that's missing from mainstream American horror, a sense that absolutely anything can happen next (and always does)." Aja Romano of
Vox gave the film four points out of five, stating: "The Wailing is the most unsettling Korean horror film in years, but it offers more chills than answers." Lincoln Michel of
GQ wrote: "At just over two-and-a-half-hours long,
The Wailing definitely takes its time, yet you could never describe it as a slow burn. This is a horror film that jumbles up ghosts, zombies, body horror, Eastern exorcism, Christian mythology, demonic curses, creepy children, and a lot more into one sustained narrative. This description may make it sound like the movie is a messy mash-up, but director Na Hong-jin ties it all together seamlessly. Instead of being a mess, the combination of tropes makes each individual one feel both fresh and terrifying." James Hadfield of
The Japan Times gave the movie four stars out of five, writing: "
The Wailing veers from police drama to ghost story to zombie horror and back again, while tossing a generous helping of shamanism and Christian symbolism into the mix. At times, it resembles
The Exorcist transplanted to the South Korean countryside; at others, it's closer in tone to
Memories of Murder,
Bong Joon-ho's masterful, slow-burning serial-killer drama".
Awards and nominations ==References==