Dead & Beautiful

I'm not sure what I expected in a 'Shudder' movie. But this wasn't it! I love the Asian ladies and downloaded it just because of the cover shot and the Vampire mention. What I got was just utterly ridiculous and insulting. There was no plot. Just spoiled rich kids and randomness.

I strongly believe that what was intended here is innovative. This is not your everyday vampire movie, but just because the plot-twist is anything but exciting or mind-blowing.

I can tell that they tried to accomplish some sort of artistic photography, which resulted in the best factor of this film. However, the story is flat, boring and its photography just can't carry the whole film; in fact, it reminded me a lot of Neon Demon and rather interested me into rewatching that movie, which I could definitely say is not among my favorites.

Vampirism has always been a moral parable about the wealthy, and sometimes the old (i.e. Eternal life) feeding on the poor and the young.

So, to recap, this is a painfully obvious, lame "social experiment" about a bunch of bored narcissists and sociopaths with more money than sense to see how far they'll degrade into violence and cruelty if they imagine they're vampires.

What is new about this? Aside from the global cast (three Asian people and two Europeans) and the 21st century backdrop this is the same old story rehashed for a new generation. In fact, it's worse than that, because it's just so obvious unless you're a kid or slow on the uptake.

For Taiwan product, this totally a bad one. For the past 10 TV movies I had watched, this one is the worst. Horror or sci fic Taiwan has some good ones but this one just poorly produced. I can tell it targets to sell internationally, but just fail.

First of all, and this was really grinding my gears, the title is false advertising. Not a single one of the main cast was "beautiful". The closest thing you got to being attractive with this group was the white dude, and even he was some boy-body twig with an unruly mop of hair on his head. The two females, in particular, looked about as basic as they could get and not at all cute, and really, the only person who came close to being truly good looking was the male escort they picked up halfway through the film. There are dozens of truly beautiful actors in Asia and THIS is what they came up with for a movie with the word BEAUTIFUL in its title? Shame.

Secondly, out of any vampire movie I've ever seen, I have never seen one this absolutely boring, slow and uneventful. Nothing goes on for the majority of the film, and if it weren't for the stunning cinematography, I would have given up on this movie after 20 minutes. As it stands, good shots do not make a good movie, and the lack of action, coupled with some of the worst English I've ever heard (some of their accents were atrocious. If English isn't your strong suit, please stick to speaking your native language, especially in a movie where English is the second of third language for the actors of this film) made this movie a slog to get through.

It's incredible; this movie looked like with the right talent and a tighter, more horror focused script, it would have been something worth watching. What we got is an art house film about a bunch of trust fund lames who just happened to become vampires. It should have been interesting, but it really isn't.

Don't bother with this one, folks. It's just not good.