4BIA

I had the pleasure of watching this Thai anthology tonight. 4 separate stories without a wraparound. I was pleasantly surprised.

The first story is about a woman and her cell phone and all of a sudden someone messages her out of the blue. She is kind of lonely so she gets right into it and the texting gets out of hand until she finds out that... well I won't spoil it for you but let's just say one part in particular gave me shivers big time. It's a little more original than your average cell phone horror fare.

The second story is about high school kid who is bullied and decides to get revenge. The best way I can describe it is that it's like a "Final Destination" inspired MTV music video but it gets better towards the end, where it gets gory and despite the bad CGI it's definitely worth a watch.

The third story is about 4 teens who go white water rafting in the jungle. It is chock full of movie references and it is HILARIOUS! I laughed out loud quite a few times. Very enjoyable, and of course in keeping with the theme of the anthology it has horror elements to it as well. It was fun watching some of the movie references tie in with the story.

The fourth is definitely the weakest of the bunch. It has a few jump scares and a lot of clichés and not much else. It reminded me of a bad episode of Tales From the Crypt or the new Twilight Zone.

All in all a good anthology that I believe stands up beside any of the V/H/S or similar titles coming out nowadays. 7/10

The 1st story fell right into my pool of likeliness. Delivering the story without a single dialogue was done well.

2nd story was all right but I really didn't like the editing such as lot of shaky camera, flashes all of a sudden and CGI was not so satisfying. Story and writing was okish.

3rd one felt like a drag to me from the beginning but felt a lot more in the middle, the actors acted wacky in times of fear but the ending was somewhat good or whatever.....

4th in my opinion didn't deliver as much, all could be predictable from the beginning.

For a Thai horror movie, then "Phobia" was a lukewarm experience, because it wasn't particularly scary.

The first segment, titled "Happiness", was the best of all four stories. It was also the most interesting story of them all. The director had managed to struck a nail with this story, as it was portrayed really well.

The second segment, titled "The Deadly Charm" had a nice story as well, though the CGI generated dead people looked like something made on a Commodore 64. That was really an eyesore to behold. For a tale of revenge, then it wasn't all that shabby.

The third segment, titled "The Man in the Middle", had an interesting enough story, with sort of a "The Sixth Sense" going on. However, the story was portrayed in a way to comical way, that really brought the story down to a childish level. And the way that the young men were behaving was also helping bring the story further down.

The fourth and final segment, titled "The Last Flight" was the second-most interesting story, and it had the most scare effect of all the four stories together.

The acting in all stories, except the third one (The Man in the Middle) was good, and you could easily get into the stories. However, the stories are fairly short, and they suffer under that criteria, which is a shame. As a aficionado of Asian horror movies, then I was looking forward to sitting through this, but the end result was a somewhat less than average experience, unfortunately.

That being said, I will still make it through the sequel, but more on that later.

I must say that 4bia is one of the good Thai horror movie. Directors from Shutter, Body 19 and Iron ladies prove that they all can come up with suspenseful tales together. There are four stories and each of them is 30 minutes. The four stories are pretty engrossing, suspenseful and interesting.

The story: First, we get 'Happiness' directed by Yongyoot Thongkongtoon who did Iron ladies. A girl has a broken leg and stays in her apartment. She sends SMS to friends and soon she received a SMS from someone mysterious. She soon chats with him and asks for his picture. It turns out...things are not always what they seem. It is creepy and thrilling. 3/5

The second story is not very thrilling nor suspenseful but still good. 'Tit for Tat' directed by Paween Purijitpanya who did Body 19. A guy use black magic to take revenge on a group of students who bully him. You will know the outcome as nowadays, this kind of plot are common. The gore and violence take over suspense and the thrills. Though without the suspense, it is still engrossing. 3.5/5

Third story is 'In the middle' by Banjong Pisanthanakun who did Shutter and Alone.Four buddies camp in a forest. They make fun of horror movies and tell ghost stories before bedtime. One of them was drowned when they went water raft. They start to search for him and soon things start to get creepy. I think this story is the most suspenseful and the ending is not what I had expected. Though there is suspense, the story is a bit slow. The suspense starts later. 3/5

The final and fourth story is' Last Fright' by Parkpoom Wongpoom who also did Shutter and Alone. An air stewardess is to escort a corpse who is a princess alone. Things start to get creepy and thrilling. As the third story has the suspense, this one has the thrills. Although like the third one, this started off a bit slow but it still manage to thrill me. 3/5

Overall: Is it worth to watch it? Yes, it is. Suspense and thrills fans should watch this. I am not afraid to say but 4bia is actually one of the best horror and Thai movie I had seen. It is recommended to watch this. It is good although I am not a horror fan. Rated NC-16 in Singapore.

what a stupid title... this movie starts off with a surprisingly well done title sequence that uses blood as its main motif... it was elegant.

i was impressed by how great the first 'mini film' was shot. it looked great. The tension was excellent throughout and the almost-total lack of any dialog was interesting and ambitious.

the second 'mini film' is exceedingly bad... the flashy editing was distracting and seemed to be included only to cover the thin script. the "terrifying finale" of the whole thing centers around a horribly executed cgi zombie-looking character. who uses cgi to make zombies?!?! this is the worst of the 4.

the third one was a lame and mildly homo erotic attempt at a 'self-referential' horror movie (in the vein of 'scream' maybe?) not scary, not funny, totally forgettable.

the last one was great! incredibly effective thriller about a flight attendant that has to deal with one of the most terrifying scenarios that i can remember seeing in a movie. it grabs you and doesn't let you go... great acting too by the lead actress.

in closing, you gotta take the good with the bad i guess...

1 is good, 2 is god-awful 3 is bad 4 is great.