Crew
Director/Screenplay – Banjong Pisanthanakun, Story – Choi Cha Won, Chantavit Dhanasevi, Na Hong-jin & Siwawut Sewatanon, Producers – Na Hong-jin & Banjong Pisanthanakun, Photography – Naruphol Chokanapitak, Music – Chatchai Pongprapaphan, Visual Effects – C-Jes Gulliver Studios (Supervisor – Cheong Jai Hoon) & Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd. (CG Supervisor – Arthit Virojjanakul), Special Effects/Prosthetic Makeup – Phichet Wongjansom, Production Design – Akadech Kaewkot. Production Company – Northern Cross/GDH/Jorkwang Films.
Cast
Narilya Gulmongkolpech (Mink), Sawanee Utoomma (Nim), Sirani Yankittikan (Noi), Yasaka Chaisorn (Manit), Boonsong Nakphoo (Santi), Arunee Wattana (Pang)
Plot
A film crew go to conduct a portrait of Nim, a hereditary shamanistic priestess devoted to the goddess La Yan among the Isan people in Thailand. The crew accompany Nim as she goes to the funeral of her sister Noi’s husband Wiroj. There Nam notices that Noi’s daughter Mink is behaving strangely. Nim is certain that bad spirits affect Mink, but Noi dismisses this. The filmmakers decide to follow Mink and Noi as well. As they observe, Mink’s behaviour becomes increasingly strange and more deranged. Nim is certain that Mink has become possessed and determines to free her.
The Medium was the sixth full-length film for Banjong Pisanthanakun. Pisanthanakun had first co-directed with Parkpoom Wongpoom the ghost story Alone (2007) and the highly successful Shutter (2004), which later underwent an English-language remake, plus episodes of the Thai horror anthologies Phobia (2008) and Phobia 2 (2009). Pisanthanakun later went on to solo direct the N is for Nuptials episode of The ABCs of Death (2012) and a further horror film with Pee Mak (2013), as well as the non-genre romances Hello Stranger (2010) and One Day (2016).
The Possession and Exorcism film has been a well-established standard ever since The Exorcist (1973). This has left Western films mired in the same tedious clichés about Catholic priests chanting rites as the possessed projectile vomit and mouth taunts that have been repeated ad nauseum for fifty years plus now. (See Possession Films). There have been quite a few Found Footage possession films too – see The Devil Inside (2012), The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) and Late Night With the Devil (2023), among others.
The Medium doesn’t even look as though it is a horror film from the outset. As I began watching, I thought I had mistakenly begun watching a documentary observing the naturalistic practices of Nim’s shamanism and real funeral ceremonies. As Nim, actress Sawanee Utoomma has a thorough ordinariness and lacks any sense of glamour or of an actress being cast in the part.
Of course, it doesn’t take long before things go off the rails and into horror territory. As it does, there is the welcome sense of watching a possession film that has thrown out all adherence to the Western model for the most part – well it still has the possessee with deep voices and manifesting nasty behaviour – but gone is any adherence to Catholicism and its rituals of exorcism that dominate the English-language scene. Instead, we have a work that is welcomely rooted in a different culture and its traditions.
Banjong Pisanthanakun gives his actors, particularly possessed girl Narilya Gulmongkolpech, and his camera people a thorough workout. About twenty minutes in, the point-of-view switches from Sawanee Utoomma’s shaman to the niece Narilya as it becomes clear that she is demonstrating increasing evidence of possession – meltdowns in the workplace and having sex with strange men in the office after hours, before the unnerving scenes where she appears to have put a dog in a pot on the stove.
The show builds to a full-on ending. This takes at an abandoned five-storey building where the altar is doused with animal blood, before the exorcist decides he cannot handle what he is facing and dives over the side of building. In the deranged finale, Narilya drives everyone crazy and we see those present violently bashing their heads to a blood pulp against the wall, tearing the throats of camera crew out with their teeth and jumping out windows.
Trailer here