The film centers on a policeman who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illnesses in a remote Korean village in order to save his daughter.

The site's critics consensus reads: "The Wailing delivers an atmospheric, cleverly constructed mystery whose supernatural thrills more than justify its imposing length.

"[7] On review aggregator website Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[9] Anton Bitel of Little White Lies commented: "By turns funny and despairing, this village noir brings the horror of uncertainty.

"[10] Leah Pickett of Chicago Reader stated: "The film justifies its epic length, meshing ancient east Asian mythology and rituals (village gods, exorcisms by shamans) with more recognizable horror tropes (demonic possession, zombification, the devil represented by a black dog and rams' heads) in a way that feels novel and unpredictable.

The actors are uniformly strong..."[11] Phil Hoad of The Guardian wrote: "The layers of dissembling and self-dissembling pile up so thickly that not only does Na evidently touch on something integral about the nature of evil, but actually seems to be in the process of summoning it before your eyes.

"[12] Financial Times's Nigel Andrews wrote: "Very crazy, very Korean, very long: 156 minutes of murder, diabolism, exorcism and things that go bump by day and night".

[13] Clark Collins of Entertainment Weekly gave the film B+ grade, stating: "Despite its epic length, The Wailing never bores as Na slathers his tale with generous supplies of atmosphere and awfulness".

[15] Jacob Hall of /Film commented: "The Wailing as it exists would involve burning the very structure of a traditional western movie to the ground.

[16] Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter added: "As dark and pessimistic as the rest of South Korean thrill-master Na Hong Jin's work, The Wailing (Goksung, a.k.a.

The Strangers in France) is long and involving, permeated by a tense, sickening sense of foreboding, yet finally registers on a slightly lower key than the director's acclaimed genre films The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010), both of which also got their start in Cannes.

"The Wailing" erupts with a string of gruesome deaths in an insular village, but the investigation unleashes a greater terror — that of the paranoid imagination.

"[18] David Ehrlich of IndieWire stated: ""The Wailing" boasts all the tenets and tropes of a traditional horror movie, but it doesn't bend them to the same, stifling ends that define Hollywood's recent contributions to the genre.

The film doesn't use sound to telegraph its frights a mile away (there are no jump scares, here... well, maybe one), nor does it build its scenes around a single cheap thrill.

"[21] James Hadfield of The Japan Times gave the movie four stars out of five, writing: "The Wailing veers from police drama to ghost story to zombie horror and back again, while tossing a generous helping of shamanism and Christian symbolism into the mix.

At times, it resembles The Exorcist transplanted to the South Korean countryside; at others, it's closer in tone to Memories of Murder, Bong Joon-ho's masterful, slow-burning serial-killer drama".