The South Korean horror film Lingering offers an apt title. It lingers and lingers and then lingers some more. Its one-hour-and-forty-minutes format should probably be cut by 30 minutes at minimum.
That said, it also offers an interesting storyline and legitimate scares, especially one near the beginning.
But its strengths are often canceled out by its weaknesses, making it a zero-sum game in my opinion.
A Stay at the Horror Hotel
Yoo-mi, a 20-something, is tasked with handing off her tween sister, who has no one to care for her, to someone at a hotel far away. Yoo-mi’s mother committed suicide a few years ago, and she’s never reconciled it.
That’s the setup. I think. It’s not a typical setup, and the dialogue in the beginning scenes didn’t make it easier. It might be the subtitles too, but I’ve watched several subtitled films lately as I reviewed Monstrum and #Alive, and I didn’t have a problem with the plot.
About 10 minutes in, I was getting bored because not much was happening. But all that changed. In one of the scenes, Yoo-mi is driving her sister to the hotel.
Now at this point, I was completely lulled into boredom when one of the scariest and most effective jump scares occurred.
Perfectly timed and expertly set up, the scene is the best moment of the film. Some horror films aren’t as solid as others, but they offer one great scene that makes the experience worth it. I recently reviewed Z, a horror film with a flash-bang scene like the one here in Lingering.
I thought that if this film does nothing more for me, it’s done this and is worth my time. I think it’s this scene that got me to the end. No other scene compared but other good moments followed.
Other scenes had the same quality of surprise. Just when I thought the film was heading in one direction, it zigzagged and brought me to another scene that was entirely unexpected and quite satisfying.
In one moment, Yoo-mi transitioned from the real world to a ghost world. The transition worked so well and Yoo-mi’s reaction was so properly placed, it created another strong point in the film.
Over and over, just as the film began to wane, writer and director Yoon Een Kyoung would present a strong scene that was not only moving the story along but revealed a creative flair for the horror genre.
So what I’m saying is that Lingering had a lot of nice touches that I appreciated.
Where Problems Began
While Lingering has a lot of positive elements, it’s equally riddled with drawbacks, many of which could probably have been avoided.
The biggest problem for me personally and the most unfortunate aspect of Lingering was its lighting – or lack thereof. It was simply too dark. I watched it on multiple devices, but it didn’t seem to make a difference for me. If I can’t see what’s going on in the story, how can I be scared?
More than once, I’d hear the obligatory horror crescendo signaling something heinous apparently happening on screen – not that I saw it.
I understand that some films don’t have much in the way of budgets. Horror filmmaker George A. Romero worked his magic on the independent film Night of the Living Dead in 1968. It’s somewhat laughable now to watch some of the low-budget scenes with the zombies, but because it’s so well directed, it hardly matters.
The second biggest problem revolved around the main character, Yoo-mi.
Building a good character is no easy task. If she is too perfect, she’s either unlikable, because the audience is jealous, or boring because she’s a caricature. If she’s too imperfect, she’s unlikable.
The Yoo-mi character errs in the latter. She’s supposed to be a sympathetic character, as her mother committed suicide, and life has clearly been unkind to her.
It’s supposed to make her into a cold character, but she comes off to me as almost callous at times, especially toward her little sister, who is utterly adorable, which makes her indifference hard to fathom, even with her disturbed background. While that changes throughout the film, my first impression of her doesn’t, so it’s hard to recover from that.
In many scenes, she offered all the personality of two-day-old wheat toast, moving from moment to moment in a perfunctory way. At one point, even her aunt said something like – “I never liked you. You always seemed so cold.”
That sums up how I felt about her too. She’s so cold, it’s hard to be scared because I don’t like her enough. If she dies, she dies. That’s not what you want the audience to feel toward your main character.
The Lingering horror scenes are professionally crafted but the pacing seemed off in places. It’s simply too long and the cooler scenes that need to be interspersed with the hotter horror scenes are too numerous and lengthy. Some of the softer scenes that usually build character didn’t move the story along enough, so the film dragged in places.
Boredom set in more than once for me, and I wondered if I should even watch the end. But again, a decent horror scene would pop up that kept me glued.
Horror films can be long but still effective. Consider Hereditary – the Debbie Downer of horror films – it’s ridiculously long at two hours and seven minutes, but I was never bored. Depressed. Yes. Dejected. Yes. Bored. Never.
It’s been argued it’s too long, and it probably is, but I think a film is only too long when it’s dull. Hereditary is not.
That’s probably due to good pacing and great acting that centered around engaging but flawed characters so that even when the scenes are cool, they are interesting and that moves the story along. Because I cared about what happened to the characters in Hereditary, I wasn’t bored.
Lingering never built character enough to hold attention for long, so the cool scenes don’t offer much.
I’m ambivalent about the ending too. Because the storyline is well thought out and unique, the film’s ending tied up a lot of loose ends. But – and I don’t want to give too much away – it seemed like a cop-out ending because the main character had to rise to the occasion that in reality would never have happened. It seemed like it was just the most convenient way to end it.
Here is where I’m going to get a little petty – I didn’t like the hotel. The hotel was creepy but not in a good way.
It had no charm, no ambiance, no flair. Frankly, it’s maudlin. It’s more like an old folks home with rickety 1950s furniture and heavy carpet drapes that keep the sunlight out than a hotel anyone would want to stay in.
But I’m spoiled after the hotel in The Shining – a 140-room labyrinth nestled around snowcapped mountains. Now that’s a creepy hotel but in the best way possible.
Final Thoughts
Lingering is an OK film but not a great one. I made it all the way through, but there were moments when I wondered if I would.
The biggest drawback to me is the lighting and its length. But it does offer legitimate scares and remarkably good scene setups.
If you’re looking for a servable horror film, this one might be for you. Otherwise, you can skip it for other films that aren’t as long and better lit.
Rating (out of five): 
