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isn't really a whole lot of reasons to watch
Byeong-ki Ahn's "APT", as the director
has made the exact same movie at least 3 times
now, counting among them "Nightmare",
"Phone",
and "Bunshinsaba"
-- all films about vengeful female ghosts bent on
haunting the hell out of a poor innocent heroine
unless our heroine can figure out the reasons for
said haunting and right the wrongs. You know, that
old thing. It's the same premise you've seen in
the last 100 or so horror films out of Asia in the
last 8 years (ever since "The
Ring"), and will continue to see until
the international audience stops importing them,
which doesn't seem to be anytime soon judging by
the genre's continued popularity, owed in no small
part to repetitive remakes by various Western
countries.
The only real argument for
even wasting your time with "APT" is to
see how seamless director Byeong-ki Ahn's camera
tricks have become, as he performs a series of
sleight of hand maneuvers to reveal his Asian
female ghost in various situations. At this point
in his career, Ahn has become so adept at the pan
and reveal gimmick that it's quite impressive to
watch a master of the craft ply his trade, and
even though you've seen it many times before, and
can most likely predict every beat within the
scene, it's still quite the skill to behold.
The film itself follows the
misadventures of one Se-jin Oh (So-young Ko), a
lonely, single career woman who hasn't much of a
social life. One day, while walking home from
work, Se-jin encounters a creepy Woman in Red who
throws herself in front of an oncoming train --
while trying to drag Se-jin along with her.
Although she survives the encounter, Se-jin's life
becomes a terrifying game of, "She's watching
you! Look out! No, behind you! No, under your bed!
Oh hell no, she's right next to you!", as the
Woman in Red returns again and again to haunt poor
Se-jin. You'd think the girl would just get it
over with, but no, apparently Asian people, once
deceased, are really cruel bastards.
And oh yeah, people are dying
in the apartment complex across from Se-jin's, all
of the deaths coming precisely at 9:56 p.m., which
also happens to be when the lights in the
apartments turn off for some mysterious reason.
What's a lonely career woman dodging her boss's
phone calls while also playing hide and seek with
a persistent ghost to do? Apparently it's an
excuse for a game of "Rear Window",
where Se-jin spies on her neighbors using
binoculars (apparently a crime in
South Korea
, as a police Detective threatens our heroin). To
further the film's references to Hitchcock's film,
there is even a wheelchair bound character named
Yoo-yeon (Hie-jin Jang) who Se-jin befriends. The
character switcheroo by Ahn is duly noted.
Overall, your ability to be
scared by "APT's" many Boo moments
depends entirely on your familiarity with Asian
horror films. If you've seen one or two entries in
the genre, then "APT" is more of the
same -- sneaky female ghosts that moves
unnaturally (being dead and all), loud, screeching
music accompanied by an appearance of said sneaky
female ghosts, and a past that must be uncovered
in order to stop the killings. Maybe. Twist
endings are always an available option for the
ambitious filmmaker in these movies.
"APT" does have a
couple of stellar sequences, one about halfway
into the movie, and the other immediately
following. In the first, our heroine is inside her
bathroom when the Woman in Red appears, standing
in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. Instead
of running, Se-jin calmly turns and walks out of
the bathroom, slips into bed, and pulls the covers
over her head. She's forced to lie trembling in
bed as the sound of the Woman in Red's high heels
click-clack on the bathroom tiles as the ghost
walks to the bathroom door. Moments later, a young
schoolgirl who Se-jin befriends gets her own
personal encounter with another female ghost
(there are two ghosts in the movie -- or are
there?) that moves with a crickety, scratching
noise. In both sequences, Byeong-ki Ahn allows the
scenes to play out in torturous slowness, filling
the soundtrack with the sharp click-clacking of
the Woman in Red's high heels and the scratches of
the second ghost.
Character-wise, we have your
usual assortment of victims with hideous pasts,
and a leading lady who is interchangeable with the
1,000 or so that has come before her. Which is
unfortunate, as our introduction to Se-jin gives
the impression she was a real spunky go-getter and
strong-willed, such as when she rebukes her boss'
criticism of her work without hesitation, much to
his chagrin. Alas, Se-jin loses any semblance of
an original personality very quickly, leaving yet
another generic heroin trapped in overly familiar
confines within an overly, and getting more so
with every entry, familiar genre.
I hesitate to call
"APT" good, but it isn't entirely an
awful experience. This slight recommendation is
buoyed by director/co-writer Byeong-ki Ahn, who
knows how to stage a scare scene like no one's
business. While it's true that the scares are easy
to predict, right down to the nano-second for the
true genre fan, the film is nevertheless
impressive to look at, and the atmosphere is
oftentimes creative. I've seen worst, but I've
also seen better. "Phone", with its
spunky reporter as the lead, remains Ahn's best
version of, well, the same movie.
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