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 he South Korean horror film "Nightmare" is a
slasher film in the vein of "I Know What You Did Last Summer," with
heavy doses of supernatural elements ala the Japanese film "Ring."
It's a pretty standard Asian horror film, with a pretty standard ghost, a
standard female heroine, and (dare I say it) pretty standard scare and kill
scenes. In a word, "Nightmare" is…standard.
The film tells the tale of a group of close-knit college
friends who are haunted by the mysterious death of a girl name Eun-ju (Ji-weon
Ha) 2 years earlier. As the movie opens, good girl Hye-jin (Gyu-ri Kim) is
experiencing supernatural situations that convinces her something, er,
supernatural is going on. It seems the ghost of Eun-ju, 2 years dead and royally
ticked off at something, has returned to pay personal visits to each and every
one of her old buddies. As it turns out her "buddies" weren't really
her buddies after all, and her death, once considered a suicide, might not be
suicide after all…
I should probably point out once again just how standard
of a ghost movie "Nightmare" is. There is absolutely nothing here that
hasn't been done to death in the Japanese films "Ring"
and its sequels, or in the South Korean horror film "Memento
Mori." Like those films, "Nightmare" relies on the same
gimmick to (supposedly) scare the audience. They involve the ghost of Eun-ju
appearing out of thin air and disappearing a second later. There's also the old
Asian horror film standby of dressing Eun-ju's ghost all in black, with white
face-paint, dark, dead eyes, and long flowing black hair. (And if I see one more
scene where the camera focuses in on the back of a character's head, and then
pans to reveal a ghost standing before the character (or behind him/her)…)
It's been done to death, so much so that I couldn't help but snicker at just how
familiar everything is.
Besides breaking no new ground, director/writer Byeong-ki
Ahn has a hard time getting a handle on his timeline. The movie opens in the
past, shifts to the present, and then shifts back into the past, only to return
to the present. Except for one caption that tells us the movie is taking place 2
years in the past (in the opening scene), the rest of the film skips through
time without bothering to fill us in on the particulars. Of course I figured out
that the film was doing a nonlinear dance, but it was irritating that the
filmmakers couldn't be bothered to fill me in, especially when they did so in
the opening scene. Why bother doing it once, then not again?
That isn't to say "Nightmare" is completely a
throwaway film. Jeong-yun Choi, as the vindictive and bitch-on-wheels Seon-ae,
is amazingly good. And so is Jun-sang Yu as Jeong-ok, the lawyer who refuses to
lose his cool even when his friends are being chopped to pieces all around him.
Unfortunately lead Gyu-ri Kim suffers from what I call "Slow Bore Horror
Syndrome" – that is, she walks through every scene with the same dazed,
bored, and oh-so dull look on her face. I first noticed this phenomenon in the
Japanese horror film "Ring
2," and have seen it in numerous other movies. The absence of
personality and charisma in the lead heroine seems to be a mainstay of Asian
horror films.
Still, "Nightmare" has a number of good scenes,
but none are of the "Oh, I'm so scared" variety. Instead, they're more
of the "That was neato" vibe. Credit goes to director Byeong-ki Ahn
for the visual treats, but there were moments when the film tries to overwhelm
the audience with loud, pounding music meant to shake us, but only ends up
annoying us, simply because the events taking place onscreen are
so…pedestrian. I kept thinking, "Been there, done that," while
watching "Nightmare."
Besides being standard in its horror aesthetics,
"Nightmare" has a rather low bodycount, and the kill scenes do not
warrant such lengthy stalk scenes that preceded them. For instance, we get
scenes of characters being stalked for long periods at a time, only to have the
kill scene be…weak. That is, if there is a kill scene at all. Most of the time
the stalk scenes have no payoff, which is rather irritating, to say the least.
Besides the first kill, which features a character in a
phone booth and broken glasses, the rest of the film is underwhelming. And in a
movie that has fallen into the arena of slasher films, weak kill scenes is the
kiss of death (pun intended).
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