Il fantasma di Mae Nak

The synopsis and the DVD cover to this movie does have a certain appeal, and it does give you some sense of hope and expectation to the movie. However, don't get your hopes up too high.

For a horror movie, then "Ghost of Mae Nak" is fairly slow and anything but scary, bordering on being overly predictable at times. Plus there are random scenes where the ghost is shown and then they just cut to some other scene, leaving you clueless as to what happened after the ghost appeared, and also raises a big question mark as to why people wouldn't be scared out of their pants after having seen a ghost that up close and personal.

The story told in "Ghost of Mae Nak" is about an ancient tale of love between Mae Nak and Mak. And oddly enough, it today's time, there is a young couple in love with similar names Nak and Mak. It is said that the ghost of Mae Nak will come between anyone who would stand between her and her true love.

I will say that the storyline itself is adequate, although there are no scares at any times throughout the movie. Plus it also becomes rather predictable at times. The movie was suffering from an overhanging sense that no one was really scared given their predicament and situation, which made the movie have an approach which just lead to you not really buying that much into it.

As for the special effects, well they were there, and they were adequate. Not top of the line Hollywood blockbuster effects, but effective enough and doing what they are supposed to do.

There was a single turn of events that I hadn't seen coming. Without saying what it was, it is towards the end of the movie, at the temple scene. It was actually a nice touch, but it didn't manage to pull up the overall enjoyment of the movie as a whole.

The idea with the bone amulet was a nice touch to the movie, though, I will say that much.

For a Thai ghost and horror movie, then "Ghost of Mae Nak" is a fairly standard movie, that offers nothing new to the genre, nor does it hold any scares or overly spooky moments. If you enjoy Thai and Asian horror (and ghost) movies, then there are far better movies available.

This film was, without a doubt, one of the creepiest, scariest films I've seen in Asian cinema--or any cinema, for that matter. It leads the viewer along a plot line that looks ho-hum and standard for any thriller but then, when you least expect it, it takes you on a ride you never saw coming. Much of the acting is just a little "over the top" which is typical in a lot of Asian horror films, but the lead actress, newcomer Pataratida Pacharawirapong was as believable, beautiful, and emotional as any actress in any horror film I've ever seen from any country. From the cinematography, I found myself also wishing to re-visit Southeast Asia and check it out more thoroughly. There were no shots of Bangkok's crowded, dirty streets or sex outlets (which are what you'll see in 99% of the films shot in Thailand) but there were a lot of culturally interesting shots. Overall, this film is a must-see for any horror fan.

Moving into a new house, a newlywed and her husband come under attack by a malevolent ghost that soon turns its attention to their friends, forcing her to discover the long-held secret of her return and stop the rampage from continuing.

This one turned out better than expected. One of the elements that's really impressive here is the fact that the haunting scenes are top- notch, delivering a lot of nice scenes. The opening dream opens the film strong with the initial appearance of the ghost delivers a solid shock with it's banging noises and really off-beat jump, as well as a couple of other brief ghostly visions from out-of-nowhere especially work. The appearance in the house during the walk-through is pretty nice with the unearthly noises that only he can hear, the gag with the mirror and the second dream-sequence complete with the disappearance and a brilliant gag to wrap it in, make this one a real highlight. The stand-out sequence, where the ghost attacks thieves inside a small van, is an absolutely classic using darkness mixed with the brilliant gag of flashing light intermittently to see coupled with the comeuppance of the gang at the end, which makes this so fun. The film's other supernatural action is also really enjoyable, including the two main hospital scenes. The first sequence with the levitating body in front of the priest while the others disturb the burial site is one of the better scenes in the film, as the surgeon's test where the ghost physically prevents others from interacting with the body is a great visual and comes off rather well. The action-packed finale where the race to get the ghost action resolved meshes well with the exorcism performed elsewhere, and a fun twist capped onto the end of it all makes for a rather enjoyable and exciting conclusion. Along with the fact that the ghost is actually really creepy with its faded eyes, blacked-out mouth and teeth and an eerie dark spot on its head and the great kills in here, these film's good points here are more than enough to hold up over the couple flaws to this one. One of the biggest is that this one really has a convoluted back-story that is so hard to understand, there are repeated attempts to explain it and none of them do much good. One of the biggest obstacles in that regard is that the characters in the flashback have the same names as the current protagonists even though there's no possession going on, along with the fact that it seems to wipe out the meaning of events after they happened and offer up a second, slightly different explanation for it all just makes it all the more confusing and incredibly hard to understand. There's also the flaw in here where the film's languid pacing produces a long opening at the begging as it does take a while to get going with its good scenes while there's also the rather overlong and unneeded flashback scene which just drags the film out a little longer than what it should be. These here are the film's problems.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Siwat Chotchaicharin is a very good actor in this movie. It is custom that if spirits like this show up its because they are there to to protect you. Good scary movie and the English subtitles are good for learning English.

OK, last night me and some friends were on our monthly Horror-night, where we usually watch 2 Asian movies and an American one. So there we were, 7 people in quite the mood I might add, with popcorn, chips and beer, therefore no matter how bad this one would turn out to be, the fact that we were together made it impossible for it to fail: BUT IT DID !!

Dear God it failed so bad! In the first 2 minutes you get a glimpse of what they call the ghost, well, the girls called it "Whaaat?" while us, the guys were more like "Well she's kinda hot, except for that hole in her forehead!". Didn't quite know how to take the film cause we knew not if it takes itself seriously or wants to be more of a dark comedy. Well turns out, that it really tried taking itself seriously which is sad actually, because it did manage to provide some good laughs but in the bad way, cause it had no intend for such a thing.

I could go on and on with the plot, character development, "over-the-top" death scenes but I would only waste your time trust me on this one. Only good thing about this movie is that the special effects reminded us all about Mario and what a great game that is. I really miss Mario! Oh wait, this comment is about the movie. OK, summary:

STAY AWAY! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!