The fantasy film festival White Nights will show the Spanish horror thriller for the first time on the last weekend of January and first weekend of February 2025 The Wailing by Pedro Martín-Calero in German cinema. We were able to see the film in advance and give it a horror recommendation.
The horror film The Wailing doesn’t just raise the hairs on the back of a Netflix star’s neck
Ester Expósito rose to prominence as Carla in the Netflix series Elite. However, with dark colored hair, you have to look twice to recognize her in The Wailing. The Spanish star plays student Andrea, who is in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Pau (Àlex Monner) in Sydney. During the nightly video chat, however, the horror overtakes both of them: first Pau notices one dark silhouette behind Andreathen at the next virtual meeting the young woman has to watch helplessly as her boyfriend is murdered by the same man in black.
Because no one believes her, Andrea searches for the truth behind the eerie presence on her own. The creature appears only on screens and is invisible to the naked eyebut that doesn’t make it any less deadly. Apparently the activities of the dark persecutor go back many years and also played a role in the lives of film student Camila (Malena Villa as the Argentinian Kristen Stewart) and Marie (Mathilde Ollivier), who was convicted of murder.
Andrea, Camila, Marie: The Wailing links the stories of three young women from different times in its horror spiral. Instead of relying on big effects, the Spanish film – with success – prefers to rely on them all the time subliminal threat at the edge of vision or screen. Horror films like The Strangers already understood that the most reliable goosebumps don’t necessarily reside in a grotesque monster, but in a human silhouette in the background that goes unnoticed by the main character for a long time.
The Wailing: Nerve-wracking horror, even if not everything is new
In one of the scariest scenes from The Wailing Andrea is in bed. Because she has now discovered that her pursuer is only visible in photos, videos and screens, she keeps switching back and forth between the front and selfie cameras on her cell phone in fear. At some point she falls asleep. While their eyes close, ours linger on the small screen. And just before the phone screen turns itself off, a pale face comes into the picture.
The Internet age has brought new sources of terror for horror films, such as social media, video calls and ubiquitous cameras. The Wailing leans into modern media horrorin which technical devices are both a blessing and a curse. Works like Unknown User or Influencer have already explored different facets of distant connection, and The Wailing also understands current fears only too well, when Andrea watches the death of her friend but cannot intervene.
Of course, the idea of invisible pursuers is nothing new in horror circles. The Wailing could easily be described as Mixture of Shutter and It Follows and The Invisible Man describe. Just because similar ideas have already been explored in the genre doesn’t mean that the Spanish film isn’t still effectively scary.
Traumatic encounter: The Wailing as a horror film with a female twist
While listening to music or filming videos in The Wailing, the protagonists repeatedly catch the title in their devices Lamentations of unknown origin on. The disembodied, sobbing female voices provide the soundtrack of horror, which also serves as a theme throughout the film.
Because all of the main characters being persecuted are women who are targeted by their male observer. And with that, the horror film still packs a punch despite all the modern elements female primal fear that goes back far before all technological achievements: sooner or later every woman has to deal with the possibility of inaudible footsteps and groping hands alone on the way home.
This is how The Wailing opens, jumping in time, at the end intergenerational traumawhich is just as relevant – and frightening – today as it was centuries ago. And that’s far from the worst basis for a truly scary horror film.