Editorials
‘The Medium’ Is One of This Halloween Season’s Best Horror Movies You Might’ve Missed [Indie Horror Spotlight]
The content space is more crowded than ever, making it challenging to keep up with all of the genre titles available via streaming platforms, VOD, and theatrical releases. It can be overwhelming just to browse. To help prevent great indie horror from slipping through the cracks, we’ll spotlight our favorites every month.
True to form, October marked another insanely busy Halloween month in terms of horror releases. So much so that it became tricky to keep up, mainly thanks to the return of significant franchises on both the big screen and small. One of the most under-the-radar titles of October happens to be one of its most startling, the Shudder release of The Medium, a documentary-style nightmare hailing from Thailand.
The Medium introduces us to Nim (Sawanee Utoomma), a Shaman possessed by the spirit of Bayan in the Isan region of Thailand. Nim explains to the documentary crew that Bayan has been inhabiting women in her family for generations. She came to become the vessel for the deity after older sister Noi (Sirani Yankittikan) refused and turned to Christianity to ward off Bayan. The documentary crew decides to stay and use the family as the sole subject of their feature when Noi’s daughter Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech) starts demonstrating signs of possession. What’s first suspected as Bayan choosing her next successor gives way to worries of something more sinister afoot.
Sawanee Utoomma as Nim – The Medium – Photo Credit: Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Shudder
Producer and co-writer Na Hong-jin first thought of creating a follow-up to his hit, The Wailing, with a story that would center on Il-gwang (Hwang Jung-min), the shaman hired to help the village and exorcise the demon. It then evolved into Mink’s story, a narrative of someone’s first encounters with shamanism and the road to becoming a shaman, inspired by what Il-gwang’s origins might’ve looked like had he written the sequel. The Medium, which Na Hong-jin wrote with Chantavit Dhanasevi, ultimately isn’t connected to The Wailing, but it does bear some thematic resemblances stemming from its initial conception.
The Medium‘s lengthy two-hours and ten-minute runtime might seem intimidating, but it breezes right by thanks to its infectious and engaging cast. In an interview with Screen Daily, Na explained that this was achieved through a loose script that required improv. Director Banjong Pisanthanakun (Shutter) gave his actors scene objectives and let them improvise their dialogue. That direction and the mockumentary setup infuse authenticity, making for a more immersive entry point into this world. It puts the characters first, engendering rooting interest long before the real horrors arrive.
At first, the scares are subtle. The horror begins with tell-tale signs of possession in Mink, a young woman raised by a mother who long ago rejected her family’s spiritual beliefs. The more Nim and her brother Manit (Yasaka Chaisorn) try to intervene to help, the more Noi angrily rebuffs, choosing denial until Mink grows violent. The halfway point marks one of the most chilling moments involving a reflection in a vehicle window, but it’s so understated that it’s easy to miss.
Then it builds. Eerie found footage-style video of Mink’s nighttime activity grows more disturbing. Even still, it can’t prepare for the absolute insanity of the climax, an onslaught of spiritual exposition and gruesome horrors. It’s gory, shocking, and unpredictable.
Much like The Wailing, faith plays a prominent role in The Medium‘s events. Local cultural beliefs clash with Christianity, muddying the fight for Mink’s soul. But there’s a more personal tragedy underpinning Pisanthanakun’s film; this is the direct fallout of events that transpired so many years ago, before Mink was even born. Noi’s selfishness, her refusing her duties of accepting Bayan and purposefully shaping events for Nim to take her place, irrevocably altered the family’s future. Noi’s choices removed any for Nim and then Mink. The Medium dangles the question of whether Mink’s plight is Bayan seeking retribution, course correction, or abandoning the family altogether for the offenses committed.
The ultimate answer manages to break your heart regarding some of the characters we grow attached to, and leaves your jaw on the floor.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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