Nightmare

This movie I thought would be a lot better. I didn't find it that scary, but more gorey. The flashback & present time is not distinguised clearly. It's shocking what you discover as the movie goes on. This an okay movie if you're really interested in Horror flicks, but don't get your hopes up.

When Sun-ae (Jeong-yun Choi) returns from the United States of America to Seul after two years of absence, her friend Hye-jin (Gyu-ri Kim) welcomes her at home. Sun-ae is disturbed and tells Hye-jin that the ghost of their deceased friend Kyung-ah (Ji-won Ha) is haunting and chasing her. Hye-jin recalls when she introduced her new friend Eun-ju to their former close college friends: She-hoon (Jun Jeong), who used to tape every moments with his camera; Hyun-joon (Ji-tae Yu), who was a promising baseball player before damaging his knee; Jung-wook (Jun-Sang Yu), who has become a prominent lawyer; and Jung Mi-ryoung (Hye-yeong Jo), who works in advertisement on television. The jealous and envious Sun-ae revealed a secret from the past of Eun-ju causing a tragedy in the group. When She-hoon, Hyun-joon and Mi-young are killed, Hye-jin finds a videotape hiding a dark covenant of her friends about the death of Kyung-ah.

This ambiguous horror movie is another great example of the high-quality of South-Korea (and Asia in general) in this genre. Director Byeong-ki Ahn uses a remarkable cinematography and angles of camera to disclose a plot where the viewer is never sure whether a revengeful fiend or an insane character is killing Hye-jin's friend, and if Sun-ae has guilty complex or is really being chased by the ghost of Kyung-ah until the very last scene. The cast has great performances, the actresses are extremely gorgeous and Ji-won Ha is one of the most beautiful actresses I have ever seen. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

"Gawi" (aka Nightmare/Scissors/Horror Game Movie) was Byeong-Ki Ahn's first horror film. It's a decent, if unoriginal attempt at horror, and is somewhat effective. Then again, this movie is chock-full of flaws.

First is the lack of coherent continuity. The movie confusingly switches from the past and present without warning, and has quite a few badly-placed flashback sequences. The next thing is the complete lack of originality. There is not one but TWO long-haired vengeful female ghosts, gory deaths reminiscent of every other slasher in the world, an ending clearly jacked from every other sequel-promising slasher. The last thing is how ineffective it is: yes, it is effective to a degree, but not as scary as it could have been. Having said all that, "Gawi" does have a few good twists along the way, and I must say, a fairly gripping mystery story going for it.

If you like slashers, or liked the director's later movie "Phone", this is recommended.

My rating: 6/10

I'm afraid that I didn't like this movie very much. Apart from a few saving graces, it's nothing to write home about.

J-horror has boomed for the last five-six years but the films themselves have on more than one account been repetitive and carbon copies of a previous success. This is one of them.

Basically this is a supernatural slasher movie. The beginning is promising with chilling scenes from a morgue where a dead girl has her eyes graphically sewn together, but soon after opens them. However, after that, it's quickly downhill for this flick.

To be kind I will start with the things I like about "Gawi". On the plus side, the visuals are gaudy and the movie looks great for it's type. For those who like their horror movies gory there are a few nicely executed (no pun intended) murder scenes. We also get a few good suspense sequences/set-pieces.

However, there are quite a few drawbacks also...

First of all, and my major complaint about this movie, is that the plot skips and jumps forwards and backwards in time with an alarming intensity. Usually that's not a problem for me, but here, where the students look exactly the same no matter what age they are, I was confused on more than one occasion.

The performances are okay I guess (a little hard to tell when you don't know the language), but seem a little stiff. And for a horror movie, I don't think it was scary enough. For a while I was quite bored actually.

Being a fan of giallo movies, I was expecting quite a lot from "Nightmare", but unfortunately I was quite disappointed.

The film starts off with a morgue attendant sewing the eyes of a recent corpse shut, when he leaves the copses eyes pop back open. Flash forward two years and Sun-ae returns to South Korea after being abroad in America for two years appearing to be afraid of a ghost, Kyung-ah whom committed suicide, that she believes is following her around and the spirit wants revenge on something that wronged her. Now someone is murdering her friends. The movie alternates between flashbacks and modern day to create quite a good deal of tension throughout. The acting is good and although I pretty much knew where the plot was going fairly often on, I still enjoyed it. Now I'm looking forward to the directors next film, "Phone" which I heard nothing but good things about.

My Grade: B-

Media Blasters DVD Extras: Making of; Nightmare on Television Promo; Theatrical Trailer; and trailers for "Attack the Gas Station", "Terror Taxi", "Choking Hazard", "Rojo Sangre", "Hiruko the Goblin", "One Missed Call", & "Samurai Resurrection"

Notes: Comes with a holographic slip cover