Six childhood friends, Ta, Por, Kim, Tae, Nuch and Ko, return to their village during their university break. There they meet Miss Panor, their elementary school teacher and Ta's estranged stepmother. Panor, a girl desired by many young men, is the catalyst of the ensuing misadventure that takes place one fateful night, the night that forces each of the six friends to reveal his/her dark secrets of the past. Competing to win her heart, several men in the village resort to dark magic and cast a Love Spell on Panor. The effect of the repeated exposure to such a powerful spell has driven Panor to lose her marbles; Panor tries to purge herself off the dark magic and seeks help from an Indian witch doctor, who prescribes her to a ritual of eating the flesh of those who've put the spell on her. But something goes wrong during the process, and Panor has turned into a powerful voodoo witch herself. On that dark night, Panor takes her six students on a trip into the underworld where she'll take her revenge on the men who have wronged her.
First off, Art of the Devil 2 is not a sequel even if the number 2 in the title would suggest that it is. The only thing the movies have in common is that they both deal with supernatural forces and black magic in Thai lore. Other than that, the movies have no relation whatsoever, so don't think that you have to watch the original movie before seeing this 2nd one. In fact, it's better to just skip the first boring and pointless film and go straight for the good stuff instead that is Art of the Devil 2. When talking about the good stuff I'm refering to all the blood, torture, gore and other supernatural creepiness that this film has to offer, because believe you me, it has a helluva lot of those things to offer.
When writing this, I've almost repressed all of what the first film had to offer. Only thing I really remember was that it was quite the snooze-fest along with it being very confusing and didn't have too much to offer. I had heard some positive things about Art of the Devil 2 before I saw it, but those things where only in relation to the very gore of the film, and I was actually a bit afraid that it might still be just as confusing as the first film was, only that this time around it would have some nice gore to it. Luckily that wasn't the case, and this 2nd film was quite easy to get into from the very beginning and at least it all came together in the end and left you with no confusion, something I was thankful for.
 
I guess most of us, who keep watching both western as well as eastern horror flicks, have gotten used to the fact that gore is not a big thing in Asian horror and that they instead rely more on the supernatural side of things. One new movie that steared away from that path recently was the South Korean flick To Sir With Love and that instead got a bit brutal and slashy instead of featuring the nowadays pretty boring ghost girls with long black hair. The Thai flick Scared did the same thing and so did Art of the Devil 2, and I'm glad to see that Asia produces these type of flicks just as well as they do with ghost flicks. Art of the Devil 2 deals with Thai black magic, some of the stuff very similar to voodoo but that's also all I'm gonna say about the subject. But the fact is that the movie offers some good supernatural ghostly scares, and also a helluva lot of gruesome gory scenes that are also way more effective than all the supernatural stuff.
The movie starts off with that hooks are coming out from a guy's body, all over the body and face as well. It looks pretty gruesome and you get to see everything up-close which makes things even more effective (and disgusting).. and just like that, you have an excellent start to a pretty great film. I liked the intro because it got the adrenaline pumping, but after that, the film slowed down a bit and dove into a semi-interesting story. It's good for a while and it was not hard to stay focused, but eventually too much time had gone by without anything really happening and I have to admit that I was close to getting bored when nothing had happened for a while and the kids started to talk about realtionships and all that crap. But then all of a sudden it got going again, full-on speed, and did not stop until the credits started to roll. So if you find yourself to be a bit bored in the middle of the film or so, take my word for it and just stick with it, because it's so worth the wait.
When it gets going, it delivers one nasty scene after another combined with some scenes that are not gruesome per say, but that are more focused on actual supernatural horror. Basically, it mixes plenty of gore with supernatural horror with a great effective result to come out in the end. I can't say that the supernatural parts were that scary, but at least they added something good to the film. The gore and torture parts on the other hand are sometimes so nasty that it was sometimes hard not to look away. There were especially one scene where a guy got his toe-nails pulled out which I just couldn't watch, and it's not too often that happens, so even if it was a horrible scene, it was still a very positive thing. And even though it had so many of those nasty gory scenes, it never felt like the movie tried too hard to make the viewer feel sick, but instead they all served a good purpose and delivered some great horrific horror.
Art of the Devil 2 might make you sick to the bone if you have a weak stomach, but is an Asian horror film that is truly worth watching. It separates itself from other Asian movies, and delivers tension as well as pure moments of true horror. If you're a fan of gore, this is a must see, but not a reason alone why you should watch it. I guess I forgot to mention the acting above, but it's all good so no worries when it comes to that. Skip the first movie and go straight for Art of the Devil 2, you won't regret it.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Long khong
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Pasith Buranajan, Kongkiat Khomsiri
WRITING CREDITS: Kongkiat Khomsiri, Yosapong Polsap
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Napakpapha Nakprasitte, Akarin Siwapornpitak, Namo Tongkumnerd
COUNTRY: Thailand
RUNTIME: 100 min
RATING: 8/10
Art of the Devil 2 Website/IMDB Click here
Art of the Devil 2 Trailer Click here
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