London Film Festival – Review: The Medium (2021)

The horror genre isn’t short of either ‘found footage’ type films or ones involving possession.  Mixing the two, yet still giving it a fresh edge is new Thai film ‘The Medium’.

On the face of it, the description of the film going in doesn’t fill you completely with hope, as it could easily become a ticking of genre boxes.  There’s something here though that sidesteps that trap and keeps things moving in an interesting manner.  This is probably due to a number of factors, including the ‘mockumentary’ approach which eases you in, yet manages to give it an authenticity that is successful, where many others fail.

Initially, the film crew follow Nim (Sawanee Utoomma) a shaman for a small village, who is ‘possessed’ by the friendly spirit Ba Yan.  Possessed is probably the wrong word here and she is more like a willing vessel through which Ba Yan helps the villagers.  In this opening period we learn her family history and how the women in the family have been the shamans, while the men tend to die regularly, like Spinal Tap drummers.

This is merely the calm before the storm though, as while at a funeral, she senses her niece Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech) may be harbouring a more malevolent spirit.  From this point ‘The Medium’ begins to ramp up, and by the end is an entirely different proposition than at the start.  Somehow, these shifts in tone or focus don’t bump up against each other awkwardly and it naturally flows.  It is therefore able to be an examination of belief, superstition, tradition, and later, fear.

Despite the latter, there is even a remarkable amount of humour and a light touch during some of ‘The Medium’.  This is partly possible due to the excellent cast who bring both a serious and playful side to proceedings.  Take Nim’s brother Manit (Yasaka Chaisorn) who is both a dedicated father and curmudgeon at times, but can also appear like the village idiot.  Similarly, Narilya Gulmongkolpech’s Mink is sullen and then wild, before becoming the embodiment of everyone’s nightmare.  It’s a great ensemble who can handle the many shades in this film adeptly.

Visually too it’s an interesting piece, employing multiple styles of filmmaking.  Obviously, there’s a lot of the standard horror effects and camerawork you’d expect from a film such as this, but they are deployed carefully, with the most clichéd only appearing sparingly.  The later frantic movements, night vision shots, and handheld madness is balanced nicely by the more sedate opening period.  There has clearly been a lot of thought given to the best way of depicting the different phases of the narrative, and it feels like it organically develops.

Horror as a genre is not my favourite it has to be said, and there needs to be something special in there to grab my attention.  The Medium has that element that raises it above the run of the mill fare, and combines a number of interesting layers of storytelling.  This means that it is likely to appeal to quite a wide audience, assuming that they can cope with a certain amount of gore in the latter stages.  Even if you’re hesitant, it definitely deserves for people to give it a chance at the very least.

‘The Medium’ is showing as part of the London Film Festival at the Prince Charles Cinema (Wednesday 6th October), and the Odeon Luxe West End (Friday 8th October).