(2005, Thailand)
A spirited slasher that might please gorehounds and collectors of horror movie cliches.
A busload of good-looking schoolkids on a school trip deep in a Thai rainforest get stranded by a spectacular accident. But then the survivors are picked off one by one in increasingly gruesome ways. So who is murdering them, and why?
A simple plot with a busload of characters. There are so many, that it's tough to work out who's who, and who means what to whom. Just when you think you are getting to know them a little, they're dead!
After some feeble initial 'shocks', the death scenes get more unexpected. The variable special effects are rather gory, but occasionally digital rather than prosthetic. Like FRIDAY THE 13th, the death scenes are the most entertaining thing in this film, with never the same murder weapon being used twice. In Thailand there's some neat new agricultural implements that we haven't seen before...
But there's little plot and the music (usually the backbone of atmosphere and suspense) is thin and uninvolving. I was disappointed to notice a boom microphone ducking into view a couple of times in an early scene - haven't seen that sort of error for a while - SHUTTER this isn't. It's not SCREAM either. Much of the action makes the characters seem stupid, because they blatantly ignore the basic rules of horror films. If only they'd all calmed down and stuck together...
The main disappointment is that the film doesn't look nearly as moody as the fantastic posters, nor do any of the events in the posters accurately appear in the film. Perhaps next time, they could get the person who makes the posters to shoot the film.
But I don't want to be too hard on SCARED. As the film opens, you get a unique look at some of the end of year Thai school festivities, which promises a film full of local traditions and superstitions. But instead we get a rip of western slasher films - blood, screaming and a high body count.
It's entertaining enough. The photography is nice, shot on what looks like high definition video. The locations are unusual, particularly the early rainforest scenes, making it vaguely reminiscent of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, especially with the plethora of stakes sticking out of the ground.
The ending is leftfield to say the least. It's the only scene that really needs subtitles. If the producers make SCARED 2, they're going to need an ingenious script to work around it. But no doubt they'll cross that bridge when they come to it...
The Thai DVD has no English subtitles. In the extras, there's a trailer and a brief behind-the-scenes segment. The image is 16:9 anamorphic, the audio is a clear 5.1 mix, and official Thailand DVDs are very reasonably priced. The film has also made it to DVD in Germany, but again with no English subtitles.
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