The Wailing

Some films stay with you not because they make you feel good—but because they leave you disturbed, uncertain, and full of questions you can’t easily answer.

The Wailing

I didn’t fully understand it the first time I watched it. Or the second. But I kept going back—not because I enjoy horror (in fact, I usually avoid it), but because this film didn’t feel like a typical horror movie. There were no jump scares, no flying ghosts, no dramatic screaming. And yet I felt uneasy from the beginning to the end. A kind of fear that creeps under the skin and refuses to leave.

What pulled me in was not just the mystery—it was the feeling that this story meant something more. That I was missing something important. So I watched again. I searched for articles, read theories, watched video essays. I wanted to understand.

Eventually, I realized that The Wailing is deeply rooted in spiritual and religious symbolism—most of which I didn’t recognize at first as a Muslim viewer. Some of the prayers, rituals, and ideas came from traditions I wasn’t familiar with. But instead of making me feel distant, they made me more curious. I wanted to see what this story was trying to say—not just through its plot, but through its spiritual confusion.

And that’s what makes this film so powerful: it doesn’t give you answers. It gives you questions. Deep ones.

What The Wailing gave me was not a story with a neat ending. It gave me space to wrestle with things we often take for granted—faith, fear, belief, protection, vulnerability. It reminded me that real evil doesn't always look like a monster. Sometimes, it wears a smile. Sometimes, it offers help. Sometimes, it confuses you so deeply that you no longer know what to believe.

One of the moments that shook me the most was when the Christian priest comes face to face with the old Japanese man—the figure believed to be the cause of all the horror. This is someone who carries the Bible, who believes in divine protection. And yet, in front of evil, he trembles. His prayers seem powerless. His voice is full of fear.

I found myself asking: Isn’t God stronger than evil? Isn’t prayer supposed to bring light into darkness?

But in this film, everything is blurred. The lines between good and evil, truth and illusion, trust and betrayal—none of them are clear. The shaman, who should be the one helping the villagers, turns out to be a source of darkness. The woman in white, who tries to save them, is shown as weak, fading, unable to stop what’s coming.

Why is the one who carries goodness so fragile? Why does evil appear stronger?

What made The Wailing even more unforgettable for me was the emotional journey of the main character. Jong-goo is not your typical hero. He’s a local police officer—clumsy, reactive, often overwhelmed. At first, he doesn’t take the strange deaths in the village seriously. But as the events unfold—and especially when his own daughter becomes possessed—we watch a man completely fall apart.

As a viewer, I felt his fear. His confusion. His desperation to protect his daughter, even when he didn’t know who or what he was fighting. I don’t have children, but I could feel his powerlessness. It was no longer about being a police officer. It wasn’t about doing what’s “right.” It was about saving the person he loved most—and being crushed by the terrifying possibility that he might already be too late.

Jong-goo wasn’t brave in the way movie heroes are usually brave. He was messy. Emotional. He made mistakes. He trusted the wrong people. He doubted the right ones. And still, I couldn’t judge him. I could only feel for him.

Sometimes I wonder if The Wailing was ever meant to be “understood.” Maybe it was meant to be felt. Maybe it was created to leave us in silence. To leave us unsure. Because sometimes, the scariest thing isn’t the evil outside of us. It’s the silence inside us when we don’t know what to trust anymore.

We human beings are fragile. So fragile.
We think we know. We think we believe.
But all it takes is one moment—one tragedy, one encounter with the unknown—and we begin to tremble.

It doesn’t mean we’re weak. It means we’re human.
And maybe that’s where the true horror lies:
Not in demons or spirits—but in how easily we can lose ourselves, even when all we want is to do the right thing.