The Medium (2021) is horrendously overrated

Just finished watching this Thai/Korean co-production on Shudder and it bored the crap out of me.

The director is the man who gave us "Shutter", "Alone" and the "Phobia" movies. All good. The producer is the man who directed "The Chaser, "The Yellow Sea" and "The Wailing." This movie should have been way better than it turned out.

If I had to describe "The Medium" in one word, it would be "boring." 2 hours and 11 minutes is not justified here.

This movie takes a long time to get going. There's no forboding atmosphere at all. The opening hour is very dry. For as much exposition as we get in this movie, there's practically no intricacy or complexity to the folklore. It's all so basic. And how many times do we need to see the young niece Ming character run to the restroom and throw hissy fits? It's so repetitive and adds no depth.

The acting is good, the direction is good, and the production values are good. But the scriptwriting and story bored me out of my mind.

We're in a position where the scares need to save the movie. We get a few very brief creep-outs during the middle section, one of which is a brief image that's standing on a dark road. Most of the little "chills and spills" are short-lived and completely forgettable. The first big jump scare . . . I predicted it to the second. There are some night-vision recordings of the girl acting strange during the night, which were pretty good. There was a bit of eeriness to those. The best scenes in the movie are right near the end. There's one involving a baby crying. The big finale is okay — not bad.

I give this a 2.5/5. I enjoyed "The Maid" (2020), another recent Thai horror film, a lot more than this one.