The Medium (2021) Review: A Goddess, a Camera, a Curse

Is The Medium worth watching?

Yes, if you like your horror slow, grounded and genuinely disturbing. The Medium is one of the most unnerving Asian horror films of its decade, rooting its scares in a convincingly observed world of rural Thai spirituality. The fake-documentary format makes the first half feel eerily real, and when the terror arrives it is relentless. The reservations are a leisurely opening hour and a final act so extreme and chaotic that it divides even admirers.

What is The Medium about?

The Medium is presented as footage from a documentary crew visiting Isan, the rural north-east of Thailand, to film Nim (Sawanee Utoomma), a local shaman. Nim is the vessel of Ba Yan, a goddess worshipped in her village, and the role has passed down through the women of her family.

The crew arrives around a family funeral and starts to take an interest in Nim’s niece, Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech), a young woman who has begun behaving strangely: mood swings, unexplained illness and flashes of hostility. Nim wonders whether the goddess is choosing a new medium. Mink’s mother, Noi (Sirani Yankittikan), who turned away from the family’s spiritual inheritance long ago, is not so sure, and as the camera keeps rolling, the symptoms grow darker.

Banjong Pisanthanakun, co-director of the Thai horror hit Shutter, made the film as a Thai and South Korean co-production, with The Wailing director Na Hong-jin credited for the story and as a producer. It is in Thai and runs 131 minutes.

Ethnography first, horror second

The film’s great strength is how seriously it takes its setting. The early scenes play like a genuine documentary: shrines, village rituals, family arguments and the everyday business of a shaman who is part priest, part healer and part tired middle-aged woman. Sawanee Utoomma is superb as Nim, matter-of-fact and dignified, and her calm makes the unexplained feel all the more alarming.

That patience pays off. Because the film establishes a believable community with its own faith and tensions, the supernatural does not arrive as a gimmick but as a creeping violation of a real place. The lush Isan landscapes, the cramped family homes and the sound of the rural night become part of the dread.

Narilya Gulmongkolpech and the escalation

Narilya Gulmongkolpech gives a ferocious, physical performance as Mink, sliding from sullen young woman to something far harder to name. The film’s middle section uses night-vision footage from security cameras placed around the house, and these static, grainy shots are among the scariest images in recent horror, because they force the audience to search the frame and wait.

Banjong controls the pacing of these sequences expertly, and Na Hong-jin’s influence is visible in the way the film blends folk religion, family guilt and a sense of cosmic evil that ritual may not be able to hold back.

Where the mockumentary strains

The documentary conceit has limits. As events intensify, the question of why anyone keeps filming becomes harder to ignore, and the camera sometimes captures exactly the right angle a little too conveniently. The final act is deliberately overwhelming, a barrage of shocks that some viewers find thrilling and others find exhausting, even gratuitous. The opening hour, by contrast, may test the patience of anyone expecting early jump scares.

Who should watch The Medium?

It is for serious horror fans, especially those drawn to folk horror, possession stories and found footage. It is not for the squeamish: the film includes graphic violence, animal cruelty, disturbing sexual content and sustained intense imagery, and it is strictly for adults. Set aside just over two hours and watch it in the dark, with the sound up.

If it gets under your skin, try:

• Incantation, a Taiwanese found-footage curse film with the same participatory dread.
• Exhuma, a Korean shaman horror that treats ritual and folklore with similar seriousness.
• Sewu Dino, an Indonesian possession story rooted in local black-magic lore.

The verdict

The Medium is a patient, intelligent and eventually terrifying folk horror film, built on a strong central performance and a vivid sense of place. Its slow start and exhausting finale will split audiences, but few recent horror films feel as rooted in a real culture or as frightening at their peak.

Rating: 4/5