Warning: Do Not Play

Probably one of the most irritating films I've seen in a very long time. Generally South Korean film is excellent but this one is, in my view, a real stinker.

"Warning: Do Not Play" starts of well enough and looks promising but then, for totally unfathomable reasons, heads off on an addled monsterous mystery tour. It took all my will power to see this thing through to its weak tea conclusion.

Its a shame too as the core premise is worthwhile, acting solid and cinamatics polished.

2/10.

I though about making my header comment... ''Warning... do NOT play'', but that was both low hanging fruit and not completely honest. This movie is not a complete waste of time, and some people might even like it more than I did-- if those people are looking for a rather formulaic Korean horror that tries really hard, but ultimately superficially, to be surprising and gripping. It is competently filmed in its own right, and you can tell that some experience was behind the making of the film, but...

The truth is the premise of a ''lost'', cursed creative product lurking to be rediscovered by an ambitious young creative was uninspired, the plot development is not nearly so innovative as alluded to (and the end was rather predictable to me), the mixing of found footage and professional was disappointingly cliched, and most glaringly, the characters were at best, stock. The mad director, the insatiably curious (and even unsympathetically unethical) young new writer looking to overcome their writer's block, the impatient producer, the earnest supporters who will likely be fodder... etc. The movie has a few honestly creepy moments, but those moments are themselves cliche, albeit fairly well done, and the addition of a few creepy scenes can not overcome the overall dullness of the movie, or the badly written characters and overacting which so many Korean directors seem to feel makes it more gripping.

At least it wasn't needlessly filled with screaming... lot's of ragged hyperventilating, but not too many screams, so that is something.

This movie has a promising premise, but everything falls apart bit by bit.

At the beginning, this film creates a good atmosphere of terror by scaring us, but that falls off throughout the film, little by little the story becomes boring and slow, ruining the promising premise. This premise is very interesting, but its poor execution means that the idea is wasted and the film is not worth watching, despite the fact that the story is related to the cinema. This film reflects the ambition that we have as human beings towards our profession and that we can do the unimaginable to achieve our goal, it also works as a criticism of film directors who, in some cases, are very demanding with their collaborators by demanding more than the expected. The film has very bad visual effects, everything looks very fake and visual credibility is lost, although the photography can be interesting and decent.

In this film, many things are not fully developed, as well as it fails to give us a good horror story despite the good premise and the promising idea that is not exploited correctly.

John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns did it better. Watch that instead if you can find it.

I love horror and look for it in many places and through that journey, I've come across a range of films that fall between being a decent watch and total garbage. This falls somewhere between somewhat passable and garbage. The story itself has potential but the execution, annoying characters and lack of visibility absolutely ruin it.

The story is about a woman who's trying to come up with a good horror script and hears about a blacklisted graduate film rumored to be both terrifying and made by a ghost. She becomes annoyingly obsessed with finding the film, watching it and using it to come up with something of her own.

The main character's annoying. She's moody, self-involved and even more fueled with curiosity when warned to stay away from the film. She just wasn't fun to watch.

The sets were grungy and not unexpected for a horror film but they lacked inspiration and there were so many scenes that were just total darkness. Seriously, you couldn't see anything that was happening. This style of filming can be used in ways that are advantageous for horror but it can also ruin a horror movie if the viewer has no clue what they are supposed to be afraid of.

I dunno. I was just disappointed. I was expecting more than I got and even found myself losing interest from time to time. I'm sure that some folks might enjoy it but it just didn't work for me.