SYNOPSIS:
Pongpob and Praeploy gets married when Praeploy is unexpectedly
pregnant. After the wedding, Pongpob brings Praeploy to his
mother's house to settle down. The night before Praeploy delivers
the child, the house next to theirs catches on fire. When
the baby is delivered, he often screams and cries with no
reason. The doctor considers it a case of colic ailment and
tells the couple that the ailment will disappear when the
baby turns 3 to 6 months old. Several
months later, the baby still hasn't stopped crying...while
the family's members encounter to mysterious and unexplained
experiences.
MOVIE
REVIEW
For
those who have been following this reviewer’s writeups,
it is quite obvious that he is not exactly a fan of the horror
genre. Call him stuck-up or uptight if you want, but he only
subscribes to what he snobbishly terms as “intelligent
horror”.
For the
sake of good karma, this review shall start off commending
on the intelligent Mandarin translation of this Thai horror
flick. Chinese readers who understand the language would agree
that the Mandarin title is a smart word pun on the word “baby”,
which creates a double meaning of the supernatural ability
of the eye to see ghosts.
How apt,
because the storyline does concentrate on a baby who cries
non-stop. Is the poor infant seeing things he shouldn’t
be seeing? Or is it a mere medical condition that causes babies
to cry continuously for hours? His baffled parents are as
puzzled as we are, especially there have also been unexplained
and bizarre incidents happening as well.
To its
credit, the 104-minute Thai movie does explore the supernatural
world from a unique angle compared to other movies from the
country. But the plot sadly gets muddled up trying to find
its balance between creating an eerie atmosphere and anchoring
a scientific justification for everything that has happened.
When the
final sequence attempts to introduce a twist to the already
jumbled movie, it only serves as the final nail to the coffin.
There
are a few creepily executed scenes which will make you sit
up, especially the one at the special disability centre where
patients go berserk. The production value is also considerably
high for a Thai horror production. Points go to the filmmakers
who put in effort to employ some nice use of cinematography,
music underscore and sound design.
The adult
cast Witthaya Wasukraipaisarn and Pimpan Chalayanacupt succeed
in looking constantly concerned and worried for their newborn
child. If we were them, we’d be anxious and vexed too
– you’d have to endure the crying for the entire
movie yourself to experience how it can get on your nerves.
This
Patchanon Thumjira-directed movie will please the ordinary
Asian horror fan with its above-average aspects. But it’d
take a whole lot more to make this self-important reviewer
happy.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Now we know what it is like to be language-impaired.
The DVD’s producers have kindly included quite a number
of extra features on the disc, but alas, they are entirely
in Thai with no subtitles. Either they conveniently forgot
about viewers who do not understand Thai, or they are very
confident that the targeted market for the DVD is those who
understand the language. Either way, we are bewildered.
Director Commentary – We can’t
understand the language, so we can’t tell you what the
director is talking about. He sounds very engaged in the conversation
though.
Behind the Scenes – We have no clue
what the interviewees are talking about in this 24-minute
segment. But the actual shoot for the movie looks rather tedious,
judging from the crew’s worn-out expressions. The adorable
baby does seem to be professionally trained, from the way
he instantly burst into tears when necessary.
Alternate
Opening – A six-odd minute alternate opening
which sees our male protagonist being irritated by a little
girl’s crying during a photo shoot. Hence, he goes to
find the female protagonist who is hard at work pitching a
sales idea in a meeting. They talk a little; they emote a
lot; and decide to marry. That is what we gathered from the
subtitle-less segment. If we were correct in our interpretation,
we don’t think it’d make a lot of difference from
the original opening.
Photo
Gallery – Finally, a feature that doesn’t
make us feel marginalized. This two-odd minute segment is
a photo slide show of stills from the movie, as well as some
production pictures. Nice music accompaniment and transitions
used.
Trailer
– A two minute trailer (yes, with no subtitles) that
makes the movie look really spine-chilling.
DVD
Credit – These people must love themselves
so much that they actually dedicated a one-odd minute roller
credit page to themselves. Given the visually-enhancing graphics
used on the DVD menu page, let’s not be a scrooge and
give them the deserved credit. However, hey are written in
Thai, so it makes no sense to us too.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual transfer is clear enough for you to make out what’s
happening, and there is an option of Thai Dolby Digital of
2.0 and 5.1. The director’s commentary is in 2.0, let’s
not even go there.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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