Miedo oculto

Normally I don't write reviews... although after watching this movie, it marked my life in such ways I had to leave a comment and warn others. Just spare yourself the misery. This movie shows promise at the start, thinking of such urban legends as the filming of The Exorcist... yet sadly it fails to deliver. The plot is very poor to say the least, and the main character inspires as much empathy in his role as a mad director, that by the end of the movie you are actually rooting for something to happen to him. The movie ends, and ends again, then ends strangely... and I now have to find a way to wash my brain of this dreg...

The formula has been repeated so often you have to wonder why they don't just quit.

Take a good Japanese suspense film of the same name, which was directed by Hideo Nakata (The Ring Trilogy), and had a screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi, who also wrote the screenplays for the Ring Trilogy. and bring in a big time director (Fruit Chan) and someone to adapt the screenplay to add gore instead of suspense (Brian Cox), add some American eye candy (Rachael Murphy), and you have a film that is a pale imitation of the original directed to teens.

Forget the eye candy, find the original.

Here's a film which seems to be all over the place in terms of story, which is needlessly complicated and as a result feels rushed and unsatisfactory. This is apparently a remake of an Japanese ghost film, given a western twist and cast, and directed by Chinese director Fruit Chan (who made the sickening DUMPLINGS).

The story tells of a film crew attempting to shoot a tale about a cursed production, only for themselves to fall foul of the evil spirit of a witch inhabiting the set. The witchcraft/ghost angle is entirely predictable, although there are some cool CGI effects involving swarming flies, but that doesn't stop the film from feeling disjointed and more than a little unfocused.

There are familiar cast members here, from a cameoing Eli Roth as a Hungarian director to Henry Thomas and Shiloh Fernandez, but the actors fail to bring life to what is a very stale script. You can tell Chan is trying and indeed DON'T LOOK UP is unsettling in a few places thanks to his efforts, but as with most remakes I'd recommend checking out the original instead.

I originally picked this movie to watch after reading the plot. It seemed different from most movies so I thought I was seeing something new that would grab my attention. When getting the movie home, I read the reviews on here and saw it was a "bad" horror film. Still, I took my chances.

I can see why many do not like this film. There is no definite beginning or end, leaving you to question the purpose of the entire movie. The plot seems to change focus from the movie production to the mental state of the producer.

Let it be known, this is NOT a horror movie. There are "intense" images placed in scenes without much thought (i.e. the flashbacks the main character gets). The idea is probably to shock the viewer when they least expect it. The "gore" in the movie is less frightening than taking a stroll through the butcher's shop to pick up dinner. I do not understand how this movie is rated R. It lacks the core elements which would make a movie "R" - gore, language, and nudity. This movie is all about the deteriorating mental state of the "producer" inside the movie, which is fun to watch if you're into that kind of thing. The acting was subpar; I think a high school play crew could act the scenes better than the actors hired for this movie. Overall this movie gets a 3/10. They tried and came up short.

This movie started with some promise, considering that it's from the same writers of "The Ring," and directed by (until now) promising director Fruit Chan.

The beginning is fairly intriguing, but maybe fifteen or twenty minutes in, I was losing interest, and wondering where the plot had gone. In my opinion, the writers definitely missed out on an opportunity to really scare us, to give us the next "Ring," or "The Grudge," but they passed it up. God knows why.

I didn't find Chan's direction particularly riveting or impressive, which was disappointing, to say the least. Without any notable exceptions, the acting is dismal and unconvincing, making a bad movie worse. The fake Romanian accents, in particular, started to get to me after a while. (Our hero's name is MarCUS. Not MarCOOS.)

I still felt they might have managed to salvage it at the ending, but this, as well, was a disappointment. Any brief horror they had managed to drum up had been whizzed right down their legs in roughly fifteen seconds.

Yes, there is some gore, and at times I felt an uneasy sense of foreboding, but this film ultimately failed in delivering the punches. Rent it if you like, but beware that it won't live up to expectations.