Here's more on the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. They Wait (2007) was a Canadian horror flick that most dismissed as a silly piece of work, produced by the overwhelmingly unpopular Uwe Boll and directed by Ernie Barbarash (Assassination Games, 2011) but I'd like to think the story and screenplay by Trevor Markwart is actually quite solid and intriguin, though the finished product of course, stumbles here and there. Look away now if you don't wanna read a spoiler: besides playin out a mystery that traces back to maligned sweatshop immigrants, it also skims over a topic I don't think any horror movie has ever covered before - inhumane bear farmin! We follow a married inter-racial couple (coincidentally I just watched another Chinese-Caucasian pairin in Seventh Moon last night) as they return to Vancouver for an uncle's funeral after six years abroad in Shanghai. Just as you would expect, it's open season for them starved spirits and their son Sammy (Regan Oey) starts to be able to see them like a Chinese Haley Joel Osment, subsequently fallin prey to one particular mysterious spectre, a female ghost with strange black, inky arms. Sarah (Jaime King) and Jason (Terry Chen) must figure out just what they want before dawn, when the realm of the dead would close up and the kid will be lost forever.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Terry Chen - what an annoyin actor!
Well, the heart of the mystery is unusual and definitely not cliched but the eerie buildup is undone by some cartoonish CG work, made worse by Terry Chen (The A-Team, 2010) in a superfluous role as the nobody dad. Poor guy was probably miscast because they movie doesn't need him at all. He took too much attention away from Jaime King (Mother's Day, 2011) and made the pair look trivial. I also have a problem with the castin of the kid, whose "Eurasian attributes" go as far as havin dyed brown hair. Come on guys, get real!
Bitter, bitter. Cured my fever?
Perennial wonderment:
Does bear bile really work? God knows I had a lot as a child. They were nasty. I hope one day the trade will stop. For further readin on the bear bile trade and just how torturous it is for our ursine friends, check out a Facebook fan pageor two because that's what people do these days.
Reminds me of:
Kelvin Tong's The Maid (2005).
Watch out for:
Shaw Bros wuxia vet Cheng Pei Pei (Street Fighter: Legend Of Chun-Li, 2009) plays the annoyin aunt with some literal skeletons in the closet. Great to see the golden oldies still gettin work.
Remember The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)? Well, that hand is back again after 20 years, exactin similar menace in this B-grade horror-thriller starrin the now-wrinkled Rebecca de Mornay. We're invited to amuse ourselves in a web of deceit involvin a yuppie couple and their suitably varied dinner friends bein tortured for 112 minutes by a crazy mum and her unhinged kids, as noted by Charles Gant who wrote: "The perils of buying foreclosed properties are made painfully clear". It's a remake of the 1980 Kaufman brothers film of the same name, so it's no wonder that they also got cameos in this as mortgage brokers, after cashin in on their cheques.
Bad news on the doorstep:
What is odd though, is how Charles Kaufman reportedly said this film would be a shot-by-shot remake of Bergman's Virgin Spring (1960), as published on the new movie's official website. The unsettlin turns in the movie and also the surplus elements suggest that things may have been continuously rewritten on the go. But jeez man, how many characters were actually necessary? A circus of a cast, really.
Perennial wonderment:
If the movie is decidedly R rated, why not have some sex? Wouldn't have hurt none. There are some disturbin psychosexual anxieties between the characters that could've been elevated by some twisted sex scenes. Too much blood, too little cum.
Now ain't this a pretty mess. Happy Mother's Day!
Reminds me of: Secuestrados (2010), Trespass (2011) and all recent derivatives of the home invasion genre. Apparently, it's loosely based on a true life home invasion (Wichita Massacre), where brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr went on a spree of murder, assault, rape and robbery against a home owner and
his guests in 2000, goin down as one of the worst crimes in Kansas state
history.
My hands were clenched in first of rage:
Deborah Ann Woll plays the token white slut with a black boyfriend.
When I realised that the only reason I watched this film - Rebecca de Mornay - didn't really ante up. She has a commandin presence by virtue of her character but it doesn't attract the horror levels of monstrous mummy figures like Kathy Bates in Misery (1990), which I expected to be a key element for this movie to work. Subsequently, plenty of Saw (2004) decisions thrown in to muddy the proceedings, which should've just focused on the mad mama. Also, if you're watchin this for Jaime King, you're not gonna see too much from her.
Most memorable line:
Can't remember any in such a bloodbath.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Half star short of three because there's just so much content! The big studios don't agree, so this didn't get a wide released and is mostly condemned to DVD catalogues.
A business selling the best BioPhotonic UV Stash Jars money can buy for the best prices you can find. Personally endorsed.
WHAT'S THIS BLOG ABOUT?
I'm dying - but then again, I've been dying for some 30 years now. Before I meet my Maker, I hope to put up 7,777 movie reviews here for the unhealthy number of films I've watched in my lifetime. I probably won't be an Internet hero but it's a great way to stay in touch, especially when I'm gone. - Zee Movieman a.k.a. The Joker
_010.jpg)
Posts
