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THE HAUNTED HOUSE PROJECT (Korea)

 

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Lee Cheol-ha
Cast: Sin Kyeong-seon, Jeon In-geol, Yoon E-na, Lee Hwa-jung, Hyeon Tae-ho, Shin So-yul
RunTime:
1 hr 24 mins
Released By: Shaw
Rating: PG ( Some disturbing scenes)

Official Website: http://www.pyega2010.co.kr/

Opening Day: 2 December 2010

Synopsis:

Over the course of 42 years, 6 went missing, 8 had accidents and 11 were murdered… 3 Paranormal investigators and 3 camera crew decide to look into this infamously haunted house. Ignoring the danger, the group of six entered the haunted house and disappeared without a trace. A video footage of what they shot during their visit was recovered and may reveal the truth of their disappearance…

Movie Review:

What’s new this time? Recycling previous horror film ideas, then mix and mash them together to put together this mock documentary.

At first glance, this film in the film seems to be awfully interesting because it builds on the premise of a 'true story'. It has indeed sparked a lot of conversations and speculations in Korea prior to the release, but much of these expectations were unmet.

This film started well, having people in the neighbourhood giving their accounts of the haunted house. It built up the suspense, which then leads to introducing the key characters of the film, the bossy producer and her team. Then they decided to employ the ghost hunting team to do some real ghost hunting so as to unravel the mystery and to make a breakthrough in horror film making. Then again, this painfully long introduction of roughly 30 minutes sets the tone of the movie: boring. You really do not know what you can look forward to.

As the story unfolds, it was interesting to watch how they hunt the ghosts with special equipment and tools and then you thought to yourself that you can finally expect some spooky stuff to occur. However, it all fall short and was full of clichés and recycled ideas. The camera pans over the haunted house and spots a pair of darting eyes of a black cat; the vengeful spirit dwells in the water and has long hair which covers her whole face, so on and so forth. Surely one can empathize that being original is a great big challenge. So if only these were put together and backed up with an incredible tale over the bare storyline and simplistic dialogues as it is, then there would not be complaints.

Throughout the film, there were several shooting techniques used, but the main attraction was shooting from a handheld camera. One thing good about it is that it gives you a very personal experience because of the point of view angle. It is intended to heighten your anticipation and tense you up as well. However, if you ever caught the film Cloverfield, you know how irritating it can become. Thankfully, this film was not entirely shot on handheld camera. Still, bear with it a little because of the unnecessary scenes when are brought to see nothing else but the floor or the wall.

Eventually, you get to see a glimpse of the vengeful spirit and witness another massacre as almost everyone gets possessed and kills each other. Brace yourself for the bloody scenes; it is finally getting a little scary and spooky. The chasing and killing lasted about the late 30 minutes of the movie. By then, sitting through this could be potentially agonizing and you wished for this to appear earlier or hoped they had shortened the film.

Finally, we get the scare for one last time and we have reached the end. Lesson learned: just keep out of the spooky house and do not challenge those lingering in the realm of the unseen!

Movie Rating:



(Even the poster is very telling: KEEP OUT)

Review by Tho Shu Ling

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