The Black Magic

The American friends David (Guy Bracca), Craig (Brian Bianchini) and Andrew (Daniel Lennox) travel on vacation in Bangkok, Thailand, to celebrate the last bachelor days of Andrew that is going to marry his fiancée Heather (Christina Wieber). They hire the gorgeous Thai photographer Sita (Sheny Andrea) to sightsee Bangkok with them. A couple of days later, Andrew tells them that they must return to Los Angeles and while going to the airport, they see Sita being dragged out from a river. Once in Los Angeles, the infection on the face of the yuppie David grows and while in a meeting, he vomits on the table and the other executives. Meanwhile Craig is stabbed by a stranger in an alley near his home and is interned in the hospital with a serious infection. When Andrew and Heather go to a Thai restaurant to have dinner, an old lady gives an amulet to David for the protection of Heather. When Heather is possessed by a fiend, David calls the shaman and the woman tells him that the trio of friends has been cursed by witchcraft and only a bridge ceremony may exorcise the evil spirit. But Andrew must tell first the truth about the tragic trip to Thailand.

"The Black Magic" is flawed, has a reasonable acting only, a weak conclusion but it is not as bad as indicated in IMDb User Rating. The screenplay is not original and has at least two great flaws: how could David leave a hospital and go to the house of his secretary feeling so bad? Further, how could Heather stab David and not be arrested? Considering that this is a low-budget movie, I found it a good entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Jogos Fatais" ("Fatal Games")

This is a very low-budget horror movie, so you can't really judge it on the same level as Citizen Kane or anything. Nonetheless, it's not a good movie. Like many of its ilk, it suffers from poor acting, but the combination of bad acting and an unoriginal script does it in. A big part of the problem is that there is basically no characterization of any of the main characters, and they aren't very interesting on their own merits. The plot as a whole is nothing we haven't seen hundreds of times before, and the movie spends a lot of time building up to a big reveal which is obvious from the first several minutes of the movie.

Genre fans will likely be disappointed by the level of the special effects here, which largely consist of a few stabs to the abdomen and a dash of bargain-basement CGI.

It did have some bright points, though. I thought the cinematography showed a good deal of talent, and the film overall was more visually imaginative than I expected it to be. One scene (involving a pillow in the hospital) was mildly creepy, and if the movie had stuck more closely to these lines it probably would have been a better movie.