stevey-2

I read a bunch of reviews and red flags went off, since they didn't sound trustworthy. How could a South American demonic possession movie with a terrible generic title be _anything_ but trope-filled trash?

But I'm glad I went for it. This movie is absolutely amazing from beginning to end--from the world building, to the cinematography, to the acting, to the incredibly original story, and of course it sports some genuinely scary and messed up scenes. And the world building! This could turn into a new franchise with all the unexplored potential.

Also, it's worth noting that in my 40 years of watching horror movies, I can tell you that very few horror movies ever manage to have even one truly original scene that stands out in your mind for years later, let alone two or three such scenes. This movie has a good four or five crazily memorable scenes. My wife and I, both huge horror hounds, were absolutely floored at how many wtfs there were. And almost no tropes. It played almost like a Western, but just super super messed up. What a great movie.

It would be hard to pin down which movie this most resembles, and honestly it reminded me more of video games in some ways. Maybe a little slice of Silent Hill, with hints of Bird Box, The Witch, The Last of Us, and a lot of spaghetti westerns. Great flick.

The movie is shot beautifully, and the acting is nowhere near as bad as some here are saying. But this movie is SLOW, and not in a way that successfully holds tension for very long.

The ending is a mess and some of the final events are nonsensical, suggesting that maybe there was some over-aggressive editing to cut down the length.

I'm a big fan of Southeast Asian horror, but this is one you'll want to give a miss.

This is a pretty fun action series, light on sci-fi, heavy on "you need to suspend a LOT of disbelief to enjoy it".

If you approach it like you're watching a Hollywood action flick from the 80s, you'll find it entertaining enough.

The only real problem with this show, and it's a serious one, is the casting of the two leads. They are both easy on the eyes, but they were both terribly miscast for this role. For starters, the girl is a truly terrible actress, and is embarrassing to watch. I'm sure she's fantastic in rom-coms, since she really is beautiful. But this role demanded more, and she was entirely unconvincing--even though I was happy to suspend all criticism and just enjoy it. But boy howdy, is she ever a bad actress. Any situation that requires her to do something other than "be cute" is ruined. With one exception--she does a great job with the fight scenes. But that's maybe five percent of her screen time, and for the rest, you have to watch her acting like someone who has never been in front of a camera before.

But even worse is the male lead. He is a decent actor, but he is *terribly* unfit to be the romantic lead. He and the woman have zero chemistry. No, I take that back. It's not zero. It's _negative_. They are clearly repulsed by one another in real life, and their attempts at romance are so cringey that we finally had to give up on the series after twelve episodes. We only had 4 left, and we were enjoying the story, but the romance was really just as awful and unwatchable as many other reviewers have observed. And honestly it's the guy's fault. He looks much older than her, he acts and dresses cringily young, and he is much smaller than she is (in both height and weight). It's clear that neither of them likes the other, and every time they hug it's like cousin hugs. It was just terrible casting.

The rest of the show is pretty awesome, don't get me wrong. Great pacing, lots of plot twists, pretty decent time-travel sci-fi, and really solid, top-notch acting by the entire rest of the cast. The special effects for the postwar Korean Peninsula are outstanding, and overall the series feels like it had a decently high budget.

If you can put aside your confusion about obvious time-travel plot holes, and you don't mind the male lead pawing at the female lead like a sex offender grooming a 14 year old while she cringes away from him in disgust, then you're in for a fun ride.