- December 1, 2024
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Join me in raising a glass to Quibi, the bite-sized video service that everyone in the world knew would fail except the leadership at Quibi. From launch to shut down in six months — that's truly remarkable.
Although it's funny to see this idea blow up so robustly in the faces of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, it sucks for those lower on the ladder. They worked hard to produce shows they knew no one would watch, and now they're out of their jobs. I'm sure there was good stuff on the service! But I was never, ever going to watch it.
In better news, after last week's minor respite, our selections for this week get back to the Cringe Blog themes you know and love/hate.
Prime Video, rated R, 156 minutes
There's a new rule that I want to implement, and the rule is that every movie must contain dueling religious rituals set to increasingly loud and frenetic music.
"The Wailing" taught me this. "The Wailing" also taught me — reminded me, to be more accurate — that South Korea makes better horror films than anyone else. Those filmmakers understand the importance of feeling, of atmosphere, is much greater than that of jump scares.
Here we have Jong-Goo (Kwak Do-won), a detective who is not quite bumbling but certainly not elite at his job. He messes up sometimes, which isn't normally a huge deal in his small village; nothing much happens there. Until stuff starts happening there. Brutal killings, a string of them, each by a different person. The perpetrators are connected by the brutal rash they share, pus prominently presented. This rash/curse remains, draining them of their mental capacities, until they eventually die.
Signs begin to point to a secretive Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) as the one putting a curse on these people. Some even refer to him as a ghost, even though he's visibly flesh and blood. There are stories of him eating the raw meet of a deer carcass on all fours deep in the woods, his eyes glowing red. When Jong-Goo has a dream that matches these stories, it's enough to spring him into action. He and his partner (Son Kang-gook) pay him a visit.
What they find chills them, but it's not enough to make an arrest. And things go from bad to worse when Jong-Goo returns home to find his adolescent daughter (Kim Hwan-hee) starting to develop the murderous rash.
"The Wailing" is frightening in all the right ways. Director Na Hong-jin keeps the film's mysteries locked away for much of the run time, keeping the audience guessing as to what's actually happening. The surface level story is dark, and the implied story might be even darker once you connect a few dots and think about how these people are getting sick. But the film won't do that for you; "The Wailing" is a complex story, and if you want to solve it all, you might have to watch it twice (at least). It touches on a lot of things, chief among them what it means to believe in something. Is sight and touch enough? Or can our eyes and hands be deceived? How do we ever know who to trust?
It also tries to be a lot of horror genres at once. There are scenes that pay homage to possession films, zombie films, cult films and serial killer films. Somehow, it all works, maybe because the whole narrative is fractured from the start. If a film is consistently messy, it is really messy at all? Or is that part of the appeal?
Complexity aside, the film does come to a conclusive ending, and it's a knockout. Not one that will make sleeping easy, mind you. I don't want any complaints if this keeps you up at night. But it's a great one nonetheless, paving a future for certain characters without needing a sequel to see their stories through. You already know what lies in wait for them, for better or worse.
And again, before I move on: I really must insist that all movies feature dueling rituals. I cannot stress enough how compelling that scene is. Watch it and thank me later.
Google Play, rated R, 121 minutes
Ryan, why are you putting a straight-up action movie in Cringe Blog? Haven't you strayed from the theme enough this year? I mean, last week's installment had two movies that barely qualified under any metric. Where's "The Haunting of Bly Manor?" Where's "Rebecca?" Where's the HORROR?!?
Good questions, Ryan. First of all, shut up. Second of all, my blog, my rules. Third of all, one of those might be coming next week. Fourth of all, "Mad Max: Fury Road" is the ultimate Halloween movie. Or it should be, anyway. Really, we should be talking about the miracle that is this movie every day for the rest of time. But let's focus on the Halloween of it all for now. Is it set in the fall? Tough to tell when it's set in the apocalyptic Australian outback. A strike against it? Perhaps, but listen to my other points first:
I feel like I have made my case for "Fury Road," the best action movie of at least the past 20 years if not longer. If, however, you still have some complaints, please feel free to email them to [email protected].