O Portal

On their way to a freshman retreat in the woods, a group of students are sidetracked when the route to their forest destination is closed due to a storm. Stupidly, the teens decide to follow some backwoods stranger to another road that leads to the same point. What a convenient happenstance there! Unfortunately, this route involved their ten-ton bus having to cross a rickety wooden bridge built about 200 years prior. As expected, their overweight bus cracks through the weak bridge and, in a wickedly vicious crash, plunges to the lake below killing several of the riders. Those who survive the crash head into the woods in search of safety. As luck would have it, however, there is a worse fate for them waiting on the way: a vicious killer who is looking for some prey.

When I first jumped onto the Asian-horror bandwagon, I began to realize that what I was seeing from the more popular films was sorely lacking in variety. The majority of what I found tended to lean towards the "vengeful ghost" story. So, to mix things up, I sought out a nice little slasher. Basically, I did get what I expected; but, for my first foray into Asian slasher cinema, I wish I would have gotten a bit more. Scared is basically a compilation of other past horror movies jumbled together in one average-level teen slasher. The first few kills are almost taken directly from the Final Destination series. The story & killer are reminiscent of many past slashers, from Just Before Dawn, Wrong Turn, and even Jeepers Creepers due to the long coat and beat up old truck. The best thing about this killer, though, is that he always seems to find SOMETHING to try to murder with: sickles, machetes, cars. . . or a friggin' bulldozer. The main teen characters are, well, similar to the same annoying teens from most slasher flicks. . . mainly due to the fact that I really didn't care about a single one of them. The acting, for the most part, was pretty mediocre. The kids were extremely irritating, their overreactions to EVERYTHING made no sense in the situations, and it wasn't helped by the dialogue (or maybe by the awful subtitles I got). While the film offers little-to-no scares, it does have a pretty fine amount of slasher gore and inventive kills (the phone-booth scene was fantastic) that really gives a reason to watch. Also, there are cute Asian schoolgirls running around. I won't, to save any shred of liking this movie, comment on the ending however.

Final Verdict: 6/10

-AP3-

One might forgive me for taking it short on the plot : teens take a trip to the woods. After the usual 20 minute introduction sequence, in which you can place your bet on who is going to survive, they start dying. It starts of rather scaring at first, if kind of all to familiar. One gets to see some well done gore and tension is kept up in a well executed tried-and-true Hollywood-teen-slasher way. (while there is no one dying, there are either creep effects or views on a fine selection of cute girls) perfect popcorn material until that. (yes the usual goofs the teen-slasher-affectioned wouldn't want to miss are present too ) Until the film went on to the part where it is due to unfold why the killing was taking part in the first place. Then things start to make no at all and not in a twin-peaks no sense kind of way, more in a : the scriptwriter got a call, s/he isn't going to be paid kind of way. Take all the stupid things killers do in your usual western sub-par b-slasher movie, pack all in to one, and you got the last third of 'scared'. The movie tries to compensate with a well known twist at the very end, that feels like it was smacked upon it, after it failed at the test screenings. But that doesn't help very much either.

On the bottom line a movie that starts out like a decent entry to the slasher genre but wears off considerably to the end. People who collect this kind of stuff will see it anyway, others won't regret too much if there is nothing else watch and set expectations accordingly low

The plot of "Scared" is very simple:we have a bus full of Thai school-kids on a school trip deep in a rain forest.Stranded by an accident,the survivors are viciously dispatched one by one in increasingly gruesome ways.Who is responsible for a series of brutal murders?"Scared" plays like the cross between "Battle Royale","My Little Eye" and American teen slasher flick.The action is fast-paced and the body count is surprisingly high.The death scenes are creative and quite gory.However the plot is thin and the characters are totally one-dimensional.Still the gore effects are effective with decapitations,impalements and heads split in half to boost."Scared" is certainly more engaging and entertaining than "Urban Legend" movies,"Cherry Falls" or similar crap.Give it a chance.7 out of 10.

A group of freshman college student travels to the woods with the veterans for their initiation in college pranks. However the bridge collapses and their bus falls in the river. While the students seek shelter and means of communication, a serial-killer chases and kills each one of them.

"Rap Nawng Sayawng Khwan" is an awful and annoying slasher that uses a collection of clichés of Hollywood movies and lots of sadism associated to a bad acting and poor cinematography. There is no originality in the gore story and the only thing unexpected is the final twist that is simply ridiculous. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Portal" ("The Portal")