My opinion : The films carries a tight web of the melodramatic throughout its 2h38m runtime, with subsequent shots of the mellifluous rain pouring onto the isolated mountainous South Korean village which makes for a highly interesting set up; there is no one to help them through the supernatural crisis and there sure are many more as we progress through the film scene by scene. A quality the 2016 horror film possesses is its scenes carrying an immediate sense of urgency juxtaposed by the many quiet and somber moments sprinkled throughout the film. These urgent moments felt like climaxes instead of regular scenes and that is something we give thanks to director Na Hong-Jin, in fact one of those particular sequences arriving at the 1h30 mark can be very well regarded as the most suspenseful scene in a year filled with a deck of uniquely brilliant filmmaking. I don’t consider it far fetched to dub the little girls performance in the film as one of the greatest I have seen in quite a few years, perhaps a top ten of the entirety of the decade which is a highly impressive feat, her character was very much engaging for which we cannot say the same for our protagonist, the oafishly goofy investigator whom we admire for his love towards the protection of his family but detest for his lack of overall ingenuity, because as much as one may suggest the opposite, this beautifully shot, very well composed supernatural demonic procedural is not an intelligent film, and that can lead to predictability which happens at some moments but not all. And a lack of intelligence in the grande genre of mystery and detective stories can be irreversibly damaging to the story, but The Wailing manages to keep afloat with all its plight and honorable might, delivering a near great zombie flick if it really was any. 89/100