[Asian Horror Weekend] R-Point

Watched: September 29, 2013
Rating: 3.9
Duration: 1:47:23
Genre: Horror

“don’t be afraid of living people, be afraid of those that are dead”

When it comes to giving a scare, the Koreans are the obvious expert. With R-Point, they turn a simple war movie into a gripping, puzzling, and terrifying ghost story. The suspense is perpetual, and we keep on guessing who’s the killer or what has happened to the troops. It’s an ultimate ride to one of the scariest movies we’ve seen

The CONS

The ending seems to be a bit off and weird. Don’t wanna give out any spoiler, but we felt that the ending scene was a bit odd. The pacing feels slow. We feel there are redundant moments, or it could be that we just don’t think that the subtitle was concise enough to give us full understanding of the content of the dialog exchange. Other than this, there wasn’t any much con that we can point out

The PROS

The scary part is not the ghosts or the ghostly images, but the creepy and mysterious things that are happening in R-Point. We know that they are doomed and are bound to die. We don’t have any hope that these soldiers would ever survive, but the big question is, how? And what’s going on? The movie is able to contain the mystery, and keeps the viewers glued on the screen, anticipating for the worse, expecting for the most horrifying to happen. When we finally learned what’s going on, we are still driven to madness, puzzled on what will happen next. And even with the weird ending, we just sit there, speechless, trying to recall the previous scenes, trying to connect the dots. There isn’t any big twist, but this movie will sure keep you at the edge of your seats

VERDICT: 3.9 rating. Highly recommended for horror fans

POV [Asian Horror Weekend]

Watched: September 22, 2013

Rating: 3.1

Duration: 1:32:07

Genre: Horror / Suspense

“Better than any of the Paranormal Activity movies”

Japanese horror filmmakers had been obsessed with the media technology to use as their main vehicle for their horror genre. It started with the Ring, which used cursed VHS tapes. With POV, it used the same drivel, the only difference is that it used digital cameras and movie making in general, and it is anchored on that very same strategy, as the movie cleverly used documentary-style to create an ambience that is real-life, adds creepiness to the movie

Back to POV.

The CONS

As with many Asian horror films, and common from Japanese ones, the film emphasized on backstory. They foretold the story behind what’s going, which may be appropriate, but for me, I think not. First, they used documentary-style for the movie. Narration is difficult, so retelling back story must be optional. I guess it may have worked if they used the Grudge’s style when eliciting fear. In the Grudge, the audience was not told why ghosts kill innocent victims. They just kill them, that’s it. They don’t need to be cursed or involved in some sort of cosmic connection to the ghost. The con for POV is that the movie thought they had to explain the ghosts, prevail with the story until the end part, and fall short on a twist that should’ve been huge, only if they gave a little more mystery to what’s been going

The PROS

The twist. This is one of those rare movies where you cannot miss the last 5 minutes. When we saw what we saw on the last part, we had to rewind a bit just to get another glimpse. We didn’t need logic to know how it happened, it is simply creepy on its own, without having to explain how it turned out.

These Japanese horror filmmakers are simply awesome in turning ordinary looking rest rooms into one of the creepiest places on earth. I’ve got to admit but I had to postpone watching the entire movie until the sun is up because I was afraid I won’t be able to sleep if I went on finishing the film

VERDICT: 3.1 rating. I gave that additional 0.1 for those creepy “ghost videos.” Not as creepy as the Ring or Grudge, but is definitely scarier than any of the Paranormal Activity movies

I saw the devil [Asian horror weekend]

Watched: September 21, 2013

Rating: 3.0

Duration: 2:24:05

Genre: Horror / Suspense

“the guillotine of horror reduced to a man’s obsession to get even”

This is the first feature to the Asian Horror Weekend. Asian horror films are no different from local horror films. Both thrive on emotions, sentimentality, imagery and back story. The thing about Asian horror films that differentiate from local, and even Hollywood films is how Asian films create their scary monsters. The fear factor doesn’t come from the prosthetics and technology used, but it comes from shadowing a story behind it coupled by real life presentation. Say for example, ghosts in Asian films. Ghosts looked really pale, or sometimes they look something that came out fresh from the grave. I would have to commend the makeup department for making the ghosts “real-life” in appearance, and it gets really creepy when you start imagining it

Back to I saw the devil.

The CONS

The movie lasts for a little more than 2 hours, when everything could have been summed up in an hour or 30 minutes. The movie got stuck on back story. I’m happy they didn’t explain why the psycho killer is doing random killing; it’s futile to do so.  At times we felt bored and are compelled to skip forward the juicy parts. We also started to feel bad about the protagonist (brilliant actor and Sky Vega phone model Lee Byung-hun). He makes bad decisions, gets other folks hurt and killed in the process, all because he wants his revenge in installments

Really weird that this is being compared to Kill Bill and other revenge movies. It’s not even close. The theme is revenge, yes, but the movie doesn’t dwell on that. We cannot feel the protagonist’s agony, we felt the reason he is plotting revenge is to hurt the guy, not because he wants the guy to feel so bad, be in so much pain, that he regrets having lived. I would also love to see more detective work, more complications and twists. But all we see is the killer at large, going about raping women, killing randomly, and just being devilish. The movie doesn’t get scary, it get’s annoying

The PROS

Lee Byung-hun. I first saw him in the Sky Vega phone commercial for Vega No. 6. I own a Sky Vega phone, and I have some sort of weird fixation with everything Sky Vega haha. I thought Lee was brilliant in the GI Joe movie, and now seeing him on an actual Korean film doing vernacular work elevated my interest on the movie

We don’t like gore and exaggerated gruesomeness, but portrayal of nothing but cruelty and pure evil exempts us from disliking it. When the guy starts butchering, with the camera showing this scene from behind the guy, we cringe in terror although we see very minimal blood and gore. There’s a lot of “I don’t want to watch, I’d rather close my eyes moments.” In one scene, when the killer grabs his hammer, we rather close our eyes and assumed that he’s going to do what he’s supposed to do with that hammer, and it saves us from unpleasant cowering

As revenge movies go, we look forward to “that’s what you get” moments. These are moments that you want to see, and revenge movies are inclined to capitalize on this to make the movie likeable to the audience. In I saw the devil, a first time viewer must pay attention to that massive guillotine blade, makes the movie worth the watch

VERDICT: 3.0 rating. Not as good as Kill Bill, not as hopeful as Count of Monte Cristo, but watch it still, and be prepared to cringe