Director: Jae-yeon Yun
Year: 2009
Plot: “After the co-host of a shopping channel TV show loses her job to a younger rival, she enrolls in an intensive yoga course. The very strict trainer informs her students that there will be serious consequences if they do not follow her rules.”
This is a strange movie to me. Not that the movie itself was necessarily strange, but my feelings about it are strange. I am kind of neutral about this movie. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all that good either. While watching it though, I was interested in finding out the ending. That is the one good point about this movie. Once you start, you really do want to know what happens in the end.
I felt kind of unsatisfied with the ending. I wasn’t sure what was going on exactly, and that is not something normal for me. I understood that this movie kind of runs on a form of witchcraft that is never fully stated, but that still doesn’t rationalize the complete ending sequence. Even with some of what is stated, the ending still makes no sense and really did nothing for me. I really felt that there was no real resolution to this movie.
This movie wasn’t completely bad though like I said. It had some good points. I did enjoy some of the death sequences like the one who breaks the “no showering one hour after training rule.” For the most part, I think that this movie could have been rather good. All it really needed was a great ending. Without it, it just leaves this movie as a decent time waster.
I would suggest to definitely skip this movie if you are in the mood for a great one. This is a movie that though not completely bad, lacks some much needed points. This movie is more for a boring day when there isn’t anything better to watch.
Director: Tanit Jitnukul
Year: 2004
Plot: “Boom, pregnant from an affair, is told by her lover to leave him and his family alone. Enraged, she goes to a witch doctor and has him use black magic against her ex-lover and his family. They all die in suspicious manners. Just when Boom thinks everything is over, a woman claims her ex-lover’s inheritance and moves in to his house with her family. Not long after that, unexplainable things begin to happen to them.”
I put this one off for awhile, as I had seen it mentioned many times. I never seemed to have the urge to watch it, and now I understand why. I am not saying that this was a bad movie, but it wasn’t very great either. This one definitely didn’t really leave any lasting impression on me. It was decent for the time I was watching it, but not really to see again.
I have to say I didn’t like the way that this movie was told. Some movies it is okay to see out of order and actually enjoy it. This one was just irritating. It begins by showing the beginning of the end, then goes back and tells bit by bit with adding some bits of the end in as well. I might not have found anything wrong with this, if the rest of the movie was more entertaining.
I also didn’t like the fact that the end parts were black an white, they just looked kind of cheap. I don’t usually like to say stuff like that because many actually cheaply done movies look great. The black and white scenes though looked very cheap to me while I was watching the movie.
I do have to say that the scene with Neng in the hospital was rather gross. It was about the only scene that stuck with me. All of the other deaths were rather lackluster to me. The characters were also a little lackluster. Boom was the worst to me. The character just seemed a little flat. Nothing but the Neng scene shocked, surprised, or astounded me.
I would suggest to skip this movie if you are expecting something thrilling. It isn’t going to be much to watch, but it might be good if you have nothing else to do. Though I wouldn’t necessarily suggest watching this movie, it really isn’t horrible, just not good. Also the relatively poor quality of this movie isn't going to deter me from giving Art of the Devil 2 a shot sometime. n.n
Director: Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto
Year: 2009
Plot: “Two newly weds Adjie and Astrid, along with 3 of their best friends decided to have an interstate road trip as a last attempt to reconcile Adjie with his estranged little sister Ladya. Their trip is however abruptly interrupted when they run into Maya, a strange girl out of nowhere, who wanders aimlessly into their path. "I've been robbed" is all she has to say.”
This happened to be another movie that I have seen mentioned in a few recommendations that I had been putting off. It also didn’t help that I have had a lot of homework from college and haven’t had much movie time. When I did get a slight break from my homework, I decided to give this movie a shot.
As far as the storyline goes, I was rather happy with this movie. It kept me pretty interested throughout the whole movie. I absolutely loved the portrayal of Darah. I have to say she is rather creepy just in herself. The rest of the movie wasn’t creepy or scary to me. I am usually not a big fan of slasher type movies, but this one was still rather good.
As far as the gore in this movie went, it was all pretty good. There were points where the stuff looked as fake as it really was, but because I was really interested in finding out what was up with Darah, it didn’t matter much.
The characters really do hold this movie together well. Beyond wanting to know about Darah, the best character was Ladya. Usually I have problems with the standard horror movie theme that also plays in this one, but this one did it very well. It is always fun to see a girl fighting back especially when it is effective.
I definitely suggest giving this movie a shot. Despite some of the fake looking gory scenes, the storyline is rather good. Its ending is a lot like a typical American slasher movie, but this one pulls it off better than most in my opinion.
