Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE WAILING [Fantasia Film Festival 2025 - Montreal, Canada - Virtual]
The way time works always creates an interesting paradox. "The Wailing" [Canadian Premiere/Selection] tells of a wraith terrorizing women across continents. The interesting congruence is the way similar residences play into the idea of possession. The film plays across 3 into 4 women in slightly different timelines. The first is a girl in modern times just trying to get by but a secret about her mom who was unknown to her, killed a girl when she was young and ended up dead right after she got out. It functions in a "Ring" type scenario with a entity masked in shadows and mirrors stalks the women. Using modern day tech to mess with the view is good but it works into overdrive when it makes its way back to an apartment in a familiar building. The film rachets back to a film student in the 90s. She is following a woman for a film class but finds her quietly alluring because she seems to be a wild child but with a backdrop to prove.
The reality as the truth begins to be revealed is that the woman in question in a connection to the women in the first story. The way it is played is nicely foreboding but purely done by curiosity. Camila (the film student) finally makes contact with Marie (the connection from the first story) who seemingly has a chip on her shoulder but also shows that the problem is older than her. It comes to bear in one scene since Camila now seems to have more than a passing interest in Marie. There is a crux point but that is what accelerates the connection and mythology of the story but also shows the details of what actually happened. The reality is that the connection continues on, especially when it is revealed what is actually happening in the apartment from the beginning. Like any good entity horror movie it is about what can be explained versus what cannot and how much is kept a mystery. "The Wailing" is about a curse based in both geography and heredity but by using an interesting almost reversal time structure it both primes the audience without fully explaining the mythology. B
By Tim Wassberg
