(The picture below is slightly afraid, be cautious)
Two months ago, "Psychic Medium" caused quite a stir when it was released in South Korea. Perhaps everyone has not seen a high-quality horror film for too long, and domestic netizens continue to be full of expectations, and once sent this film to the hot search.
Official poster of the Korean edition of Psychic Medium
However, when the much-anticipated "Psychic Medium" cooked meat resources finally came out, the Douban score of "Psychic Medium" began to fall, from 8.2 points to 7.0 points.
After reading it, I understood the reason, it was indeed a lot of hard injuries, but it was not satisfactory.
01
Imitation documentaries without sincerity are pseudo-horror films
"Psychic Medium" tells the "real experience" of a film crew filming in northern Thailand with psychic media as the theme, filmed in the form of a documentary, and the simulation seems to be fake.
The people there believed in animism, and Nim was a medium possessed by the "God Bayan". It was believed that the god Bayan was a good god who would bless the people, so Nim's daily routine was to exorcise the people in the village.
The Nim family has been a psychic for generations, grandma is, aunt is, and in her generation, the god Bayan originally chose her sister Noy, but Noy refused.
Psychic Medium Nim. /Psychic Medium
The filming team followed Nimes until Nimes's brother-in-law, Willow, died, and Nime's niece Min became out of normal shape at the funeral, and the film crew began to shift their gaze and follow Min.
Over the years, we have seen a lot of quasi-documentary horror movies. Open hidden cameras, long-shot prefabrication, and simulated documentary images add to the realism and suspense of horror films. The shaky shots, the rough picture, and the tension of the irregular lens grafting bring a unique visual fear and visual pleasure.
The effect of sudden lens zoom and hand-held shaking. /Psychic Medium
However, the application of the audiovisual language of documentaries to horror films has natural limitations. After all, horror movies themselves are fictional, and to be filmed like "documentary", higher requirements are put forward for scene settings, logical clues, narrative structure, and picture details.
The essential conflict between the documentary and the feature film requires the director and screenwriter to spend more effort on the plot setting, to find a reasonable reason for the audience, and to convince the audience that the existence of the camera in the play is reasonable.
Obviously, the scene setting of "Psychic Medium" lacks such sincerity, and many scenes do not conform to logic and common sense, resulting in the audience often playing.
For example, after the camera had already captured min's behavior of being possessed and harming others, mother Noy did not restrict her personal freedom, but said that she would arrange more cameras. As a mother, the daughter is like that, is the most important thing at the moment, is it to observe the record?
The heroine Min, the reflection of the glass window shows that she has been possessed by evil spirits. /Psychic Medium
For example, on the day of the exorcism ceremony, the evil spirit possessing Min's body feels threatened and tricks the aunt into opening the door through the cries of her aunt's children. At this critical turning point, as long as someone shows the child in the cradle to the aunt, the aunt will not open the door and release the evil spirit possessed min without hesitation. Moreover, the child has been taken away once before, why should it be placed next to it, or on the day of such an important ceremony?
Moreover, the final climax, the failure of the exorcism ceremony, the evil spirits of all the members, the zombies all pounced on and began to bite the photographer, and the photographer still clung to the camera, is it to show how dedicated the film crew is? This "sense of reality" actually makes the audience play, and what is still filmed on this, of course, it is running!
Horror films have developed to this day, and there have been many refined branches. The imitation of documentary-style horror films, as one of the genres, has indeed promoted the development of horror films. From the formation of "Blair the Witch 1" in 1999 to today's mature development, these years of highly talked about "Kun chi yan", "Middle Evil" and other films belong to this category.
Photo: "Kunchi Rock"
This operation of "Psychic Medium" not only did not break through the application dilemma of pseudo-documentaries, but also magnified the shortcomings of this method. Anyway, this technique is really not new, and by the time of "Kunchiyan", I already felt that there were too many new tricks.
02
Patronizing was scary and didn't even tell the story well
I think that a good horror film must first be a qualified feature film. The story is not well told, and no matter how scary it is, it is also a false alarm.
The plot line of "Psychic Medium" is clear, that is, a simple ghost upper body story. However, the plot advance lacks rationality, and the grasp of proportion and rhythm is not balanced.
The first hour and a half of slow progress, gradually creating a terrifying atmosphere, creating suspense that the heroine Min is possessed by what evil spirit.
The exorcism ceremony begins in the next half hour, the climax of the film begins, and the plot takes a sharp turn. When the exorcism fails, Min transforms into an ogre and turns everyone into a "zombie" like a plague.
Exorcism scene. /Psychic Medium
You don't know what the reason is, when it started. Some people say that Min's family kills dogs to sell dog meat, and finally all the dogs are on their upper bodies.
If this is the case, this setting is also unsuccessful, and the scene of the bloody fight of the dog spirit destroys the horror atmosphere laid by a large part of the progress bar, leaving only dry horror.
The rhythm of the film's unnatural death is also unbalanced. The first two acts only have Nim's dead brother-in-law, and Nim of "Hidden", but the last scene suddenly becomes the rhythm of the zombie siege, killing and killing, with different tones and inexplicable looks, just like the simple and rough grafting of Thai mystic horror movies and Korean zombie movies.
At the first funeral, Nimes' brother-in-law died of cancer. /Psychic Medium
Also the work of Ban Trang Bishinda Nagan, the structural integrity of "Ghost Shadow" is much stronger, and it is a good ghost film that clearly explains the theory of cause and effect. Based on supernatural photos, using a broken relationship as the reason for the story, the horror scene is set reasonably, and the ending is reversed and quite tense, finishing touches.
When I saw this, I was really scared. /Ghost in the Shell
It is also a horror film in the form of imitation documentaries, and the script completion of the domestic horror film "Middle Evil" is much higher. A country story wrapped in a vengeance core, pretending to be a ghost, the plot is set up reasonably, the details are arranged properly, and there is hardly any groove in dog blood. Although the cost is low and the technology is simple, the story is clear and complete.
Poster of "Middle Evil"
In contrast, the roughness and looseness of the narrative of "Psychic Medium" seems to give the audience a lot of room for interpretation. However, whether it is a warning of wavering faith or karma, the Medium does not give a clear context, only roughly pointing out that Min's ancestors killed many innocent villagers, and the various reasons are not unfolded and explained.
There is no deep plot impetus, relying solely on Min's various scary behaviors to promote the development of the plot, making the story of "Medium" weak and not enough to catch people.
03
Visual fear is not the entire aesthetic experience of horror films
Medium isn't good, and I think the core point is that as a horror film, it's not scary.
After watching the film, I was really impressed by Min's various weird shots. Many of the images are caught off guard, some are disgusting, some are violent and bloody. But these visual stimuli belong to the real horror, and the camera's gaze on Min stimulates the audience's viewing pleasure.
Nime beat the egg to beat out a black liquid. /Psychic Medium
But this is not a psychological oppression of horror, not the kind of fear we feel when we watch "The Curse" and "Midnight Bell", and we will be frightened by unknown things that pop out of nowhere at any time. To put it bluntly, the atmosphere shaping of "Psychic Medium" really can't work.
People like to watch horror movies, on the one hand, to enjoy the emotional upsurge brought about by fear, on the other hand, horror movies reflect the dark side of human nature, which is chilling and thought-provoking at the same time.
I think visual stimulation is just a basic requirement for entertainment. We who have read countless horror films have long had higher expectations for horror films.
Medium may satisfy visual pleasure to some extent, but it fails in terms of the depth of humanity's excavation and reference.
The last scene of the film evolved into a zombie film style, which is only a formal shell, and it is actually not the essence of the zombie film.
Full zombification. /Psychic Medium
Korean zombie films have their own unique aesthetic experience, drawing on a Hollywood-style sense of speed and rhythm on the one hand, and its unique sense of problem and realistic metaphor on the other.
"Busan Trip" is presented on the screen as a mass disaster event, which to some extent carries the public imagination such as reality refraction and social criticism.
The light of human nature kong Liu. /Busan Trip
In the face of the sudden zombie disaster on the train in the film, the main characters involved in the fight against the zombies have their own classes, and the horror is not the zombies, but the cruelty of reality and the darkness of human nature. When we face a society that is very pessimistic, the only force we can rely on is family values.
Netflix's "Kingdom" is an ancient zombie drama, and the tone is much darker than "Busan Trip". The magnates despise life, and in order to consolidate their position, they will not hesitate to kill innocents and turn ordinary people into zombies. In the face of desire, ugly faces are even more vicious. Compared with zombies, the hearts of people who succumb to the desire for power are more fearsome.
Photo: "Kingdom"
On the other hand, the exorcism scene of "Psychic Medium" is full of evil spirits biting each other's upper bodies, which is a bit out of the point, purely frightened and frightened.
Ban Trang Bisindarang himself is also a good hand at Thai horror films, can catch the audience's G-spot deep poke, and can also deconstruct the funny into the ghost film to find another way.
The aforementioned "Ghost Shadow" is already a flagship masterpiece of Thai horror films, focusing on the revenge of women after male murder, the story is complete, the tragic experience of the victim and the cold-blooded darkness of the perpetrator are presented very clearly, and the sense of fate of karma is fully permeated.
At that time, the couple in love, where would the girl think that it was a scumbag fighter. /Ghost in the Shell
"Ghost Man" is another type of Thai horror film, a comedic parody that deconstructs the classic genre of horror movies, adding many popular jokes and comedic elements to the film dialogue, often followed by a big reversal, a wave of tears with loyal love, and finally ending with a funny and joyful scene. This kind of gameplay is the way of commercial films, but there are also novel and unique features.
Funny Elements / Ghost Man
Now this "Psychic Medium" really can't even reach the average level.
We love to watch horror movies, and it's never just a two-hour visual pleasure.