Amjeon

Back in 2007, first time director Kim Jin-Won created an one of the most brutal films ever made. The Butcher was a snuff film entirely in first person. The two characters are strapped to chairs, giving helmets with cameras on them and brutally tortured in first person. The three men doing the torturing were filming their every move using handheld cameras.

This film was incredibly brutal and very real feeling. The director has not made another film since that. I was incredibly pumped to see that this director has made this new film for Shudder.

Unfortunately his new film isn't really great. They have some decent jump scares, great environments and the effects looked pretty good, however it has a lot of horror cliche's and the ending doesn't really do the film too much justice.

I think the film is worth a watch at least. I enjoyed it for what it was, I just wish it was better.

The Butcher was a better film. It was clever and unique for its time. Whilst it doesn't hold up too generously now a days, it still a cult classic.

I though about making my header comment... ''Warning... do NOT play'', but that was both low hanging fruit and not completely honest. This movie is not a complete waste of time, and some people might even like it more than I did-- if those people are looking for a rather formulaic Korean horror that tries really hard, but ultimately superficially, to be surprising and gripping. It is competently filmed in its own right, and you can tell that some experience was behind the making of the film, but...

The truth is the premise of a ''lost'', cursed creative product lurking to be rediscovered by an ambitious young creative was uninspired, the plot development is not nearly so innovative as alluded to (and the end was rather predictable to me), the mixing of found footage and professional was disappointingly cliched, and most glaringly, the characters were at best, stock. The mad director, the insatiably curious (and even unsympathetically unethical) young new writer looking to overcome their writer's block, the impatient producer, the earnest supporters who will likely be fodder... etc. The movie has a few honestly creepy moments, but those moments are themselves cliche, albeit fairly well done, and the addition of a few creepy scenes can not overcome the overall dullness of the movie, or the badly written characters and overacting which so many Korean directors seem to feel makes it more gripping.

At least it wasn't needlessly filled with screaming... lot's of ragged hyperventilating, but not too many screams, so that is something.

John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns did it better. Watch that instead if you can find it.

Watch this if you want to see a fragile "protagonist" crying, flailing and waving some sort of razor around for 25+ mins.

I love horror and look for it in many places and through that journey, I've come across a range of films that fall between being a decent watch and total garbage. This falls somewhere between somewhat passable and garbage. The story itself has potential but the execution, annoying characters and lack of visibility absolutely ruin it.

The story is about a woman who's trying to come up with a good horror script and hears about a blacklisted graduate film rumored to be both terrifying and made by a ghost. She becomes annoyingly obsessed with finding the film, watching it and using it to come up with something of her own.

The main character's annoying. She's moody, self-involved and even more fueled with curiosity when warned to stay away from the film. She just wasn't fun to watch.

The sets were grungy and not unexpected for a horror film but they lacked inspiration and there were so many scenes that were just total darkness. Seriously, you couldn't see anything that was happening. This style of filming can be used in ways that are advantageous for horror but it can also ruin a horror movie if the viewer has no clue what they are supposed to be afraid of.

I dunno. I was just disappointed. I was expecting more than I got and even found myself losing interest from time to time. I'm sure that some folks might enjoy it but it just didn't work for me.