Ha phraeng

Phobia 2: Thai Horror Anthology with vengeful ghosts, a slapstick humour horror film crew, zombies and possessed cars. Ghost driven lizards jumping on backs, a shaman near death who is determined to live on, a child zombie leaping and biting a monk on the neck, how do you know if an actor in a host film is really dead? Best of the lot is Backpackers, hitchhikers find out that the truck driver who picks them up has a rather strange cargo.; involving drug-smuggling, people trafficking and zombies this has the potential for a full length movie. Great fun. 8/10. On Netflix.

"Phobia 2" is an anthology of Thai horror films made by some of Thailand's top film directors. As previous reviewers have mentioned, it's difficult to rate anthology films because they may vary wildly in quality.

"NOVICE" (by the director of "Body") is the weakest of the bunch. A delinquent teenager is dropped off at a jungle monastery by his mother who promises to pick him up "when things calm down". "Novice" has some very good ideas but ends up depending too much on loud noises and jump scares while also being somewhat dull. Great ending, weak film. 6/10 "WARD" (the directorial debut of a Thai producer) finds a teenager placed in a hospital bed next to an old man on life support after a routine bicycle accident. Strange things begin happening and the film achieves a claustrophobic "Rear Window" feel since the strong-willed teen can't movie his legs. Good but predictable. 7/10 "BACKPACKERS" (by the director of "Dorm") was my favorite. When it starts off with two silly Japanese teenagers hitchhiking in Thailand, you wonder why it's a horror movie. That's answered soon enough. Thrilling, spooky, gory and exciting. Sadly, this director has turned more to teen comedies lately. 10/10 "SALVAGE" (by the co-director of "Shutter" and "Alone") features another story about karmic justice as a woman who sells used cars gets a comeuppance that would never happen in an American movie. Also takes a while to get going, but ends up worth the time. 7/10 "IN THE END" (by the OTHER co-director of "Shutter" and "Alone", as well as "Pee Mak") is delightfully silly and a great way to end the series. You'll have to know a little bit about Thai horror (think "Scream"), acting and Thai sense of humor, so this might be the most difficult for Western audiences. Still enjoyable with a creepy ending....9/10

I quite liked Phobia so I was quite disappointed that this sequel, with five segments by different directors, doesn't come close to matching the first.

What I especially liked about Phobia was that three out of the four stories had good suspense. For horrors with relatively low budgets, the way to go is definitely suspense over special effects. With Phobia 2, none of the stories had any level of suspense close to the first's. The first segment was boring, the second was unoriginal, as was the third (zombies!) but it was still kinda cool, the fourth was kinda messy, and the last story was... fun, actually, since it was humorous and had a couple of twists in it.

I'll give the movie a marginal thumbs-up based on the third and last stories.

I admit this movie is excellent. It got more scares and more gory. The movie had 5 stories("Novice","Ward","Backpackers","Salvage","In the end"). I like 5 of them. "Novice" is gory. "Ward" is scary, "Backpackers" is thrilling, "Salvage" is scary yet gory and "In the end" is Funny and scary. Phobia 2 is better than 4BIA. In 4BIA, Paween Purikitpanya made the story a little bit weird. But, well done for the improvement at Phobia 2. In Phobia 2, "In the end" Had the same cast as 4BIA-"In the middle". But, i think they are funnier at this movie. And Marsha Wattanapanich (who played at "Alone")is funny to you know. But she act funny a little overreacted. That's just what i'm going to say. Well done Phobia 2.

My Vote: 8/10

The problem with anthology movies is that the quality of each individual story differs from the other and therefore makes it real difficult to grade the overall experience. But i will try. The first thing I noticed that there isn't a real connection between the individual stories. Other than the prominent role given to cars. This movie could have made more impact had there been a cleverer connection. Phobia 2 is very visual and doesn't rely too much on dialog. Which is very smart since this way it will appeal to a large (international) audience. Most movies were creepy and had decent buildups. There are some sequences however that didn't work for me. I got the impression whenever a scene failed to deliver on tension and suspense they replaced it with gore. Which had the complete opposite effect on me of what was intended. From the five stories there are two that stand out. These are "Backpackers" and "In the end". This last story is absolutely hilarious and scary at the same time. It is full with twists and turns that will creep you out and will make you laugh. This story alone is the reason to watch Phobia 2. To be honest (apart from some scenes) I didn't find it really scary. Stories like "Novice" and "Salvage" weren't compelling enough. And too often the loud background music announced the scares which ruined most of the surprise. Overall however I enjoyed this movie. Just don't expect too much.