moar horror pls

Despite my previous disappointment at Netflix disorganizing my queue, I was quite impressed with what they sent me. My friends Caroline and Chris have both joined in my asian horror hunger and I spent a good chunk of the weekend on their couch while their German Shepherds, Charlie and Sissy, licked my feet. It was nice to have the chance to dissect what I'd just seen with seemingly smart people rather than just go on my own gut. C&C are both intelligent (he's an engineer and she's a stock broker, so they reach far beyond my scope) and I stole many of their thoughts and opinions for use here. They can be a lot more eloquent than my own LOLspeak commentary.

"Voice" is the fourth installment (following the namesake "Whispering Corridors," "Memento Mori" and "Wishing Stairs") in the "Whispering Corridors" series and my second favorite of the group ("Memento Mori" was surprisingly moving, with great characters [albeit very little scares], and remains number one). The flicks are not a continuing story, but rather four separate stories with similar themes running through them (they all take place in all-girls schools, include incredibly tight-knit friendships that border on romance [or are blatantly so] and generally include a lot of revenge-fueled violence). "Voice" starts out generically enough but takes a sharp left within just a few minutes, leaving the main protagonist dead in the halls of the school. Unable to leave the main building as a ghost and only heard by her best friend Sun-min, Young-eon attempts to recall the events of her last night in an effort to solve her own murder.

The scares were present in "Voice," but nothing out of the ordinary. The story itself was what made it enjoyable but it's also what ultimately made it convoluted and unbelievable. Two-thirds through the movie the timeline is explained in mind-numbing detail as is the motivation and backstory. Aside from showing too much of the Man Behind The Curtain, the mode of explanation makes no sense and I was kinda disappointed in the "reality". I'm accustomed to asian horror being a bit abstract and so I don't expect a whole lot to make perfect sense by the time the credits roll, but this just seemed to fall short of being totally fulfilling. That's not to say it's a bad movie since it doesn't really fall short as a horror piece. I'm just not satisfied with run-of-the mill scares. I prefer my horror to be accompanied by a good story, too (which is why I'll continue to sing the praise of "Phone," "A Tale Of Two Sisters" and "The Eye").

"Seance" suffered in much the same way as "Voice," but it managed to accomplish a whole lot more and still fit in some incredible scares. In a lot of ways, "Seance" reminded me of "Acacia," in that the protagonists are thoroughly normal people with incredibly mundane lives that, through some bad choices, eventually become despicable. About the only thing out of the ordinary for the main couple, Sato-san (do we ever find out his first name?) and Junko, is that she's a medium who sees dead people and can contact the dearly departed. Several scenes in the first half-hour are so ordinary you almost feel a bit dirty for peeking into their day-to-day lives. It isn't until they get inadvertently involved in a kidnapping that things spin out of control, quickly.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no, not that one) made an incredibly effective horror movie. The believability of the Satos as average people who spiral downhill due to their own choices is remarkable. And while the "child ghost" isn't exactly breaking new ground, it's still used very well and, what I loved the most, always in broad daylight. The ending itself was a bit too ambiguous for my tastes but the ultimate fate of the protagonists isn't really the point of the film, I don't think. The moral of the tale deserves center stage far more.

Next up is "Apartment 1303" and (if Netflix gets my order right) then "Lovesick Dead". I've also swallowed my queasy fear and put "Suicide Circle" in the next half-dozen or so. I'm sure that'll warrant an entry all by its lonesome.