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Post by Fenril on Jun 15, 2011 14:48:50 GMT -5
Time for more "international horror" threads, or whatever you want to call them, this time with a few variations.
First up: seen any horror movies from South Korea and / or North Korea? And if so, what did you think of them?
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 16, 2011 10:44:05 GMT -5
There's been a few:
Bloody Reunion (Seuseung-ûi eunhye)-A group of friends arriving at a teacher's mansion for a weekend of catching up fall victim to a deranged killer in a bunny mask. Sounds stupid, but actually a rather enjoyable and extremely bloody slasher. Outstanding gore and kills, brutal torture scenes and a sense of fear for the killer, despite the trickery, and a fantastic conclusion mars the fact that the twist at the end makes the entire preceedings pretty worthless.
Cello-After a devastating car wreck, a young cellist begins to experience horrifying visions and begins to look into the mystery about why she's being haunted. Average ghost story, nothing too spectacular or really too bad about it. Pretty average overall.
Cinderella-A group of friends begin dying in mysterious ways after visiting one's plastic-surgeon mother and she races to find out why her friends are dying. Way too much drama for my tastes, not a lot of horror elements though the horror stuff, including a rather nasty art class sequence, is good stuff. Too much social context, not enough horror.
Death Bell (Gosa)-A group of students at an elite academy are terrorized by a faceless being seeking retribution for past mistakes by the educators. Tries to mix Saw with an Asian ghost-girl story, and does it pretty well actually. The traps are pretty unique and chilling, the ghost is kept off-screen a lot so its appearances mean something, and it's got a lot of stuff right with it's presentation and storyline. Overall really impressive.
The Ghost (Ryeong)-An amnesiac woman finds her and her friends haunted by a vengeful ghost that shares a dark past with them all. One of my personal favorites, mainly through the quality and quantity of it's haunting scenes despite playing everything by-the-numbers so-to-speak. Great kills, great atmosphere and wonderful hauntings all add up to a great experience.
Face-A re-constructionist for the police finds that his latest assignment is connected with his daughter's poor health and must solve her case before she dies. Again, like Cinderella, may too much drama for my liking as it's more of a detective film than all-out horror which isn't all too interesting especially since it so easily can be a full-on horror film without too much re-arranging of plot elements. The hauntings aren't too bad, but it could've felt more like a traditional horror film.
Nightmare (Gwai)-A group of friends find themselves stalked by a mysterious killer after exposing a threatening secret that unites them all. Really, really weak set-up since the secret isn't that devastating and most will have gotten it solved pretty easily, but this one manages to be really enjoyable due to it's traditional US stalking/slashing set-ups, including one wicked one inside a darkened house just after the power goes out and the killer is known to be in the house with the victims. Great fun, if only it would've had more to do with it's set-up.
The Red Shoes-A struggling divorcee finds that a pair of shoes curses all who put them on to die a horrible death and must break her daughter' fascination before she succumbs to it as well. Probably my pick for the best of the lot, this is fantastic stuff. Great set-ups, tremendous death scenes, lots of gore and an enthralling mystery all put together with a great pace and lots of suspense.
Voice (Yeogo gaedam 4: Moskori)-A group of students at an elite academy are terrorized by the heartbroken ghost of one's best friend and must solve her murder mystery to break the hauntings. Way, way too much mumbling around about the importance of friendship and the relationship between the two girls that it really forgets to be a horror film for exceedingly long stretches of time, not helped out at all because the film is a lot longer than it should be to accommodate these scenes, yet it does have some good hauntings, the deaths are pretty gory and it's got a good mystery to solve, but not enough horror elements.
The Wig (Gabal)-A woman buys a wig for her leukemia-stricken sister and her odd behavior changes after successfully beating the disease forces her to look into the history of the object. Doesn't really have as much horror as it should've, since the main impetus for the horror is her behavior changes and then remarking on how she's changed merely after the fact, leaving a lot of stuff to feel rather dull. Also, without a ghost present during most of the film, it's a little hard to really feel any sort of terror or tension when it's all based around the two of them. The violence is decent, but that's about it.
Wishing Stairs (Yeogo goedam 3: Yeowoo gyedan)-Two best friends at an all-girls academy race to stop the vengeful spirit they accidentally unleashed when undertaking a ritual at the school. Pretty fun entry, not a whole lot to really get upset over although the tormenting could've been scaled back a little since it does get the spirit out a little late. Still, the local legend used is pretty nice, several of the hauntings are rather gruesome and there's a good sense of tension later on that makes it pretty appealing.
Witchboard: Bunshinsaba-The new resident at an all-girls school torments her attackers with a vengeful spirit summoned from a cursed quija board that has a special connection to the town's residents. Absolute blast of a film, filled with terrific hauntings, a thrilling mystery about the connection between the elders and the cursed object and one of the greatest gags ever where one puts a plastic bag over their head and lights it on fire while running through the school with head ablaze makes for a marvelous sight. Terrific pacing and no real lag time makes this a great one.
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Post by Fenril on Jun 16, 2011 14:23:36 GMT -5
My list: - A tale of two sisters. Loosely based on a local folk tale; two sisters visit their father and his new wife on their country home. Something is clearly wrong from the start, but is it one of the sisters, their wicked stepmother or the house itself? Psychological thriller with a late-coming supernatural twist. Okay old-fashioned haunting (the Koreans seem to speacialize in these, more so than their Japanese counterparts), through it tries to pull too many twists in its last ten minutes or so. - Acacia. An adopted little boy grows strangely attached to an Acacia tree that he believes contains the soul of his dead mother. When the boy mysteriously dissapears, his foster family starts experiencing deadly phenomena. Fairly clever haunting movie, in this case more character- than plot- driven, through it has a rather improbable axe murder as a key revelation. Bloody Reunion (Seuseung-ûi eunhye)-A group of friends arriving at a teacher's mansion for a weekend of catching up fall victim to a deranged killer in a bunny mask. Sounds stupid, but actually a rather enjoyable and extremely bloody slasher. Outstanding gore and kills, brutal torture scenes and a sense of fear for the killer, despite the trickery, and a fantastic conclusion mars the fact that the twist at the end makes the entire preceedings pretty worthless. Completely agree with this: for most of it the movie is a very solid slasher that harkens to the best american entries from the 80's (a dark family secret, a killer with a ridiculous mask that somehow becomes quite scary, the requisite put-upon final girl, etc.), but the entire third act pretty much ruins all that went before --not only does it negate the entire storyline up to that point, it stretches the killer's backstory beyond the impossible. - The host. A giant monster surfaces on the Han river, killing his way through the local populace and abducting two young children. The family of one of the children must somehow figure out a way to rescue her before the just-arriving US army makes things even worse. Surprisingly good update of old giant-monster tales (or Kaiju Eiga, as designated by Japan) with a consistent political message that nevertheless doesn't interfere with the action or the family's tragicomic interactions. Nice bittersweet ending, too. - Memories. The korean entry for the second Three...extremes anthology. A woman wakes up in the middle of a street with no recollection of how she got there. She then takes a long journey back home, only to discover something ghastly about her husband. So-so mystery with a slasher conclusion. Truth be told, this one dissapointed me a little because of its obvious twist. - Phone. A reporter on the run from goverment assassins takes refuge on her sister's country house and discovers an even worse menace: a phone line that's been killing its previous users and is now menacing her young niece. One of the first modern Korean ghost movie with more than a few nods to Ringu. While it's a bit involuntarily funny at times, this is still a pretty solid supernatural thriller with very interesting characters (especially the women... through only our heroine comes off sympathetic when all is said and done). - Ring Virus . A remake of Ringu that's closer to the original novel... my least favorite K-horror movie so far; I think I actually liked the american remake better. - Tell me something. A detective researching the case of a serial killer who's been leaving bits of his assorted victims in public places starts falling in love with a mysterious woman who may well be the killer. Or perhaps the truth is even worse than that... Pretty good serial-killer thriller with complex characters and strange motivations (a running theme in the movie is that everybody lies at some point), with a pervasively seedy atmosphere. These are all from South Korea, as I haven't found anything from North Korea just yet. |
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 17, 2011 10:16:24 GMT -5
I think anything that's happening in reality in North Korea is a lot more terrifying than any movie they can make, so I'm not surprised there's nothing from them.
Glad to know I'm not the only one who felt that way about Bloody Reunion, it's a pretty stupid twist since, as you said, it changes around the entire storyline rather than being something which is a deviation from what the preceeding obviously leads to yet can plausibly come that way, too.
I think of a good twist, I go to Saw and The Uninvited (or A Tale of Two Sisters remake, it's the same thing) as both of those were fantastic twists that come logically from the storyline you aren't looking for. This one falls into the realm of High Tension, where it's obviously done merely to say, "Ha, gotcha" and isn't done with any care or consideration for what happened before to make any sense.
I've usually heard Kaiju Eiga used to describe monsters more of Godzilla's fictional size, not the more human-sized beasts from The Host.
Otherwise, good list.
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Post by Fenril on Jun 17, 2011 12:24:58 GMT -5
I think anything that's happening in reality in North Korea is a lot more terrifying than any movie they can make, so I'm not surprised there's nothing from them. Well, there's a giant monster movie called "Pulgasari", from 1985. I swear I had heard they did a recent ghost movie, too, but I can´t find anything about it. Glad to know I'm not the only one who felt that way about Bloody Reunion, it's a pretty stupid twist since, as you said, it changes around the entire storyline rather than being something which is a deviation from what the preceeding obviously leads to yet can plausibly come that way, too. I think of a good twist, I go to Saw and The Uninvited (or A Tale of Two Sisters remake, it's the same thing) as both of those were fantastic twists that come logically from the storyline you aren't looking for. This one falls into the realm of High Tension, where it's obviously done merely to say, "Ha, gotcha" and isn't done with any care or consideration for what happened before to make any sense. Yeah, it's not using a twist ending that is the problem, it's the way it's used here. "The usual subjects" had a similar twist (in that it negates a lot of what we have just seen), but there it made sense and actually explained a few apparent plot holes. I've usually heard Kaiju Eiga used to describe monsters more of Godzilla's fictional size, not the more human-sized beasts from The Host. Otherwise, good list. True, the term specifically refers to god-sized beasts, which Japanese cinema specialized in (besides Gozilla, other essential examples incllude the Daimajin trilogy and the Mothra movies --not just the creatures themselves, but the way they are actually revered and feared by the general populace). What I meant is that The host used a few staples of this kind of movies, but with a more modern optic (like the fact that the monster is more "realistic" --not quite that large and actually a mutant instead of a god). |
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 20, 2011 10:32:27 GMT -5
Pulgasari is a giant monster movie in the spirit of the Godzilla films and not a horror film, so I wouldn't count that one. I make the distinction between the genres, though, and I don't understand why others do that labeling. It makes no sense at all, and really shouldn't be done.
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