The Medium, a found footage horror movie (well, mockumentary), certainly starts off slow,about a family dealing with some strange behavior and spiritual beliefs, before gradually turns into a seriously brutal possession horror movie., where the atmosphere does most of the damage.
The Medium Takes Its Time Getting Started
If you’re not a fan of slow paces and in particular, slow starts with your films, The Medium might not be for you, as it doesn’t rush the horror aspects, but I’m glad it doesn’t, because the build up is part of the brilliance here.
The movie begins with a documentary crew following Nim, a woman in northeastern Thailand who has inherited a spiritual role in her family, where she is believed to be connected to Bayan, a spirit that has been passed through the women in her family, and at first the whole thing feels more like a documentary about someone’s beliefs and everyday life than a traditional horror movie.
Nim is particularly easy to spend time with too, as we get to know her, in particular her family problems, particularly with her sister Noi, who rejected the family’s spiritual beliefs and converted to Christianity, and then there is Mink, Noi’s daughter, and this is where everything starts to change – Mink begins behaving strangely, but the movie doesn’t immediately explain why, where her behaviour becomes more worrying as time passes.
That slow build might not be for everyone, but it is important because once the movie does finally start getting darker, Iyouve already spent enough time with these people to care about what happens to them.
And unfortunately for them, things get very bad.
Mink Is Fantastic
Narilya Gulmongkolpech gives the performance that holds the whole movie together here, where Mink starts off as a fairly normal young woman, but her behavior slowly becomes harder to explain, as she becomes unpredictable, and that makes her much more uncomfortable to watch, featuring some little moments where she seems completely normal before doing something that makes you wonder what the hell is going on.
I really liked that approach because the best parts of the movie aren’t necessarily the big horror scenes, as sometimes it’s Mink simply being in a room and behaving strangely, and as things get worse, Gulmongkolpech has to take the character much further, and she does it extremely well – by the time the movie reaches its final act, Mink barely resembles the person we met earlier.
Sawanee Utoomma is also excellent as Nim, helping to give the movie somebody to care about while everything around her becomes increasingly horrible, and the relationship between Nim and Noi adds another layer to the situation too – they don’t agree about their family’s beliefs, and that makes it harder for everyone to decide what Mink needs so nobody has a simple answer, and that uncertainty helps to keep the first half plodding along.
I’ve also seen plenty of movies where someone starts behaving strangely and everyone immediately decides that a demon has possessed them, and then comes the usual routine of priests, shouting, religious objects and people running around a house.
The Medium takes a different route though because the family already has its own beliefs about spirits and possession – the question isn’t simply whether something supernatural is happening, but what exactly is happening and whether the family has any idea how to deal with it.
That makes the situation increasingly worrying as Mink’s condition gets worse, it also gives the film some genuinely interesting moments before the horror becomes much more obvious.
The Documentary Style
The documentary setup is another part of the movie that I think works really well, where the crew are there to document Nim and her spiritual beliefs, so their cameras being around doesn’t feel forced, and actually makes sense, and once Mink starts behaving strangely, they naturally become more interested in her.
Some of the best scenes here come from simply watching Mink move around at night while the cameras record her, as there is something uncomfortable about seeing her wandering through the house while everyone else is asleep, and the movie doesn’t always need to throw something at the camera either to have an impact – but later on in the movie, when the night-vision cameras come into play, the movie gets much more intense.
I do think the film occasionally pushes this too far, particularly when it holds on Mink for too long, as a frightening image can become less frightening if you stare at it long enough, and there are a few moments where I started thinking about how ridiculous the expression looked rather than being scared by it.
Still, those moments are the exception rather than the rule.
The Movie Gets Seriously Nasty
The final section of The Medium is where the movie really shows what it has been building toward, as things become much more violent, much more disturbing and considerably less pleasant, and there are several scenes here that are genuinely difficult to watch – people get hurt, horrible things happen, and the situation keeps getting worse.
I liked that escalation because the film has spent so much time being restrained that when everything finally falls apart, it has a much bigger effect, and there is one moment in particular that I knew was coming, I could practically see the movie lining it up, and I still reacted when it happened – that’s a good horror scene right there, as knowing that something awful is about to happen doesn’t necessarily make it less effective, as sometimes the waiting is the worst part.
The final act also has a much faster pace than the earlier sections, which makes the change feel pretty dramatic, so at this point, The Medium has gone from a documentary about spiritual beliefs to a full-blown nightmare.
And yes, it gets pretty ridiculous, but I mean that in a good way more often than a bad way.
It Does Run Too Long
This is the one big problem I had with the film, and that is at around 130 minutes, the movie is longer than it really needs to be, and while I didn’t have much of a problem with the slower first half because I was interested in the characters and the family situation, the problem comes later, when the movie starts repeating some of the same ideas.
Some of the repetition really does take some of the power away from the possession, so once you’ve watched Mink doing similar things several times, the next scene doesn’t have quite the same impact, and there are also moments where the movie could have ended earlier without losing much.
That said, it didn’t take away me liking the movie a lot,I just think it would have been more effective if the filmmakers had trimmed some of the repetition and kept the worst moments closer together.
The Atmosphere Is Excellent
And one of the reasons I can forgive some of the movie’s problems is that it looks and sounds fantastic – the rural locations give the film plenty of room to create uncomfortable scenes without needing to constantly fill the screen with horror.
I also liked the sound design, where small noises can be surprisingly effective here, particularly during the scenes where the characters aren’t sure what they’re hearing, while the music was more hit and miss for me.
Some of it works perfectly, but there are moments where I thought the movie was trying a little too hard to tell me that something frightening was happening, when I could already see the scary thing happening on screen – but again, it’s a minor thing, for what is a really strong movie overall.
Final Verdict
The Medium is a creepy, disturbing, sometimes brutal, and much better than its few problems suggest, where the performances are excellent, the setting works beautifully, and the horror becomes genuinely nasty when it finally lets loose, but most importantly, I cared about what was happening, and the film managed to make me uncomfortable more than once, so that’s a big win in my book.
Trailer
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