Hot Picks

- There's No Such Thing as Zombies 2020

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Watch the Skies 2022

- Dream Hacker 2025

- Love and Comminication 2022

- If I Could Ride Again 2025

- Freak Off 2025

- Lavender Men 2025

- Lost Cos 2023

- Sound of the Surf 2022

- The Stillness 2025

- Frankie Freako 2024

- The Texas Witch 2025

- Cannibal Mukbang 2023

- Bleeding 2024

- No Choice 2025

- Nahual 2025

- Bitter Souls 2025

- A Very Long Carriage Ride 2025

- The Matriarch 2024

- Oxy Morons 2025

- Ed Kemper 2025

- Piglet 2025

- Walter, Grace & the Submarine 2024

- Midnight in Phoenix 2025

- Dorothea 2025

- Mauler 2025

- Consecration 2023

- The Death of Snow White 2025

- Franklin 2025

- ApoKalypse 2025

- Live and Die in East LA 2023

- A Season for Love 2025

- The Arkansas Pigman Massacre 2025

- Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness 2012

- The Darkside of Society 2023

- Jackknife 2024

- Family Property 2: More Blood 2025

- Feral Female 2025

- Amongst the Wolves 2024

- Autumn 2023

- Bob Trevino Likes It 2024

- A Hard Place 2025

- Finding Nicole 2025

- Juliet & Romeo 2025

- Off the Line 2024

- First Moon 2025

- Healing Towers 2025

- Final Recovery 2025

- Greater Than 2014

- Self Driver 2024

- Primal Games 2025

- Grumpy 2023

- Swing Bout 2024

- Dalia and the Red Book 2024

- Project MKGEXE 2025

- Two to One 2024

- Left One Alive 2025

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Goksung

The Wailing

South Korea 2016
produced by
John Penotti (executive) for 20th Century Fox, Side Mirror
directed by Na Hong-jin
starring Kwak Do Won, Hwang Jung-min, Kim Hwan-hee, Jun Kunimura, Chun Woo-hee, Jang So-yeon, Jo Han-Cheol
written by Na Hong-jin, music by Jang Young Gyu, Dalpalan

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Available on DVD!

To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)

Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!


Jong (Kwak Do Won) is a bumbling policeman in a small town where nothing much happens, so most of the time there's little to do - which is how he likes it ... until the village is hit with a series of murders, and it seems the assailants have all developed rashes prior to killing whoever's in their way in a rage, brutally dismembering them and sometimes even eating some of their flesh. There's a rumour that a stranger (Jun Kimura) living in the surrounding woods is responsible for this, but at first, Jong and his colleagues pay this little heed ... until they've followed up any other lead and thus Jong and a colleague search the strangers house - and find photos of all the victims, both before and after the murders, next to something looking like an altar. Confronted with this, the stranger refuses to even speak, even when Jong destroys his altar after having found a photo of his daughter (Kim Hwan-hee) among the stranger's photos. Then the daughter develops a rash and shows violent behaviour, and it's soon clear she's suffering from what all the homicidal villagers have suffered - and thus Jong takes her to a shaman (Hwang Jung-min) who tries his best to heal her, claiming the stranger is a ghost ... but something goes wrong, and when his daughter is doing worse than ever, Jong and friends, not wholly convinced the stranger in fact is a ghost, go to his place to lynch him. But even after that is done (or Jong at least things it is), the affair is far from over, and a woman in white (Chun Woo-hee) who has been seen near almost all of the murder scenes might be the key to this - or the source of all evil ...

 

If you're at all into utter shocks blended with some light-footed, relaxed comedy is your thing, Goksung is definitely your movie - and this combination works far better on screen than I make it sound in writing, the film's basic laid-back style works well as a base for utter shocks, and very unheroic, fun characters and very likeable performances also go a long way here ... but that said, Goksung is less than a perfect movie - basically it just tries to be too epic for its own good, drags the plot out with plottwist after plottwist, and after over 2 and a half hours, a bit too much remains just utterly unexplained even for someone like me who hates being spoon-fed explanations. The main problem here though is that the story refuses to make total sense in retrospect, the baddies are all remarkably absent of motives, and based on that some dragged out sequences the film could have done without in hindsight.

It's still a totally ok watch if you don't care about the pay-off and the fact that it's too long for its own good ...

 

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dick Turpin

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kamen Rider

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find The Wailing
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find The Wailing here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!