The Medium

"The found footage style, which emulates amateur filming, has become a successful resource in horror cinema with movies like 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'Paranormal Activity'. But it fell into disuse in the 2020s after an excess of the format. 'The Medium', however, shows that the mocumentary still has room - that is, the documentary language in a fiction story, like 'The Office' and 'Modern Family'. In the plot, we follow Nim (Sawanee Utoomma), a medium who incorporates the spirit of an entity. She starts the movie explaining how she discovered the gift of mediumship, the challenges of incorporation and the relationship with her family. However, after a tragedy in the family, she begins to suspect that her niece Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech) is going through an incorporation - but not of a benign entity, but of a demon. Pisanthanakun, in the first hour of the movie, surprises: there is strength in this mocumentary language in a typical possession plot, putting some steps in a story that would be banal if filmed in a conventional way or as a simple found footage. The script, clever, also slowly inserts the tension of the story, making the audience discover details of the possession along with Sawanee Utoomma's character. By the middle of the movie, shortly after an hour of duration, it is difficult to hold back fear. It is a tense movie above all, but it leaves terror impregnated in dialogues and forms of filming. In the end, it slips - bringing the found footage without great inventions, and with American clichés. But the lesson remains that terror can still be very scary."