Sunday, February 10, 2008

Alone


((summary taken from AsianMediaWiki))

Pim is a young Thai woman living in Korea with her husband Wee. At her birthday a friend reads her fortune with a deck of cards and informs her that there is happy news! Something she has lost will soon return to her! But some lost things are better off staying lost. You see, Pim moved to Korea partially to escape the guilt of being the surviving half of a pair of conjoined twins. Her sister Ploy died after separation, a separation that Pim insisted on largely because she was in love with Wee and the guilt of choosing her husband over her sister and her sister’s resulting death has plagued her ever since. Much as she would prefer to avoid it, however, Pim soon has no choice but to return to her childhood home when her mother is felled by a stroke and – sure enough – it isn’t long before the spirit of her dead sister begins to angrily intrude upon her life.





My Rating:


One of my absolute favorite horror films is the Thai horror/thriller Shutter… so of course, when I heard the directors had a new film out, I immediately had to hunt it down and download it. And I wasn’t disappointed! Alone is a terrific addition to the horror genre…and another testament of Thailand (and Asia’s) ability to create successful, thrilling horror/ghost films. For me, American movies and remakes just don’t have the ability to scare me like Thai, Japanese, or Korean films do. Honestly, even Hostel seemed tame after trying to stomach Japan’s, Audition.

But again, here, Alone is no exception.

Everything was spot on: the directing, the lighting, the acting, the music, the sound effects—some of the shots themselves were overly creepy, even when there was absolutely nothing supernatural going on—and they couldn’t have chosen a scarier setting. Haunted houses may be overly common in ghost films, but somehow the house in this movie still managed to creep me out! They kept the colors dull and lifeless, and incorporated the use of mirrors/reflections (a horror devise I’m partial to) to create disturbing, haunting images throughout the entirely of the film.
I jumped more times than I could count, and even screamed several times! All the lights were out, and I was alone, so the heightened atmosphere definitely helped send extra chills down my spine. Even now, long after the movie is over, there’s one scene in particular that I’m having trouble erasing from my mind.
However, this movie wasn’t perfect. One thing I really disliked about it was the plot—or to be more precise—the ending.
Honestly, I was okay with the story being fairly typical (the idea of Siamese twins is kind of creepy on its own, after all) and it’s hard to find a completely original horror plot that hasn’t already been done to death. Frankly, I had faith that the directors would do something interesting and surprising with it—so I watched on dutifully, anticipating the ending. And then the “twist” came.
SPOILER
Let’s be realistic: when dealing with this kind of plot, there’s a very obvious “twist” that anyone can guess just from reading the synopsis. So of course I was annoyed when the writers/directors decided to take the movie in that direction. They had such a wonderful set-up and then ruined it with a predictable twist—which IMO is sometimes worse than having no twist at all! I actually wish they had kept the “twist-ending” out altogether and focused their attention on generating more chills for the audience instead. Right towards the end, the scares became few and far between—the actors took the spot-light when it should have remained on the ghost.
END SPOILER
But sadly, no, it wasn’t as good as Shutter.
And yet, despite its flaws, everything that led up to the ending was fantastic: it’s still a cut above the rest, and a wonderful addition to the horror genre. I’ll definitely be looking forward to the directors next project!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Creepy (2016)

  ((summary taken from Rotten Tomatoes)) A retired detective is asked to investigate an old missing family case. Download:   Watch on ROKU