What to expect from Thai horrors? Clearly something special! Three directors. Three novels. There's nothing to say yet, except that it's all damn intriguing!
It's time to start watching.
Parik (Director: Patchamon Tumjira)
A ghost takes revenge on two sisters and their friends for mocking her wig. Hmm. The idea itself is so, to put it mildly, unusual that there are no words. The plot in principle carries nothing in itself, except the intention to shock the viewer with a sudden merciless finale. I liked the short visually, but in itself it seems too meaningless a story that throws each other kids in elementary school. The difference is that from such a bike you can make a masterpiece. You can ruin the story. You can just tell it as it is. In this case, the third option is appropriate. Therefore, the impressions remain mixed.
The body of the bride (Director: Kirati Nakintanon)
A story of male cruelty and necrophilia. As in the last novel, the visual component is fascinating. You always expect something special, because suspense, no matter how fleeting, leaves behind a frightening and at the same time alluring mystery. Unfortunately, the finale once again proves that this is another horror for the sake of horror without much meaning. It seems that even before the start of viewing it was known, but for some reason this context is more annoying than entertaining. Perhaps it lacks a different reading and a greater intensity. At some point, you even notice the specific beauty of what is happening, but this feeling quickly evaporates when the climax presents another murder with a predictable outcome.
Overtime (Direct: Isara Nadi)
Now it's a lot more fun! The bosses brutally play subordinates who stayed overtime at work, so as not to overpay them. The director masterfully shows the pranks in a way that seems to be real. However, time after time, no matter how spectacular the deception, subordinates remain fools. It is impossible to guess when Isara Nadi will start playing in serious horrors, because you get a little tired of the abundance of pranks. And even when this happens, Nadia once again leads the viewer by the nose, until eventually he comes to the end. Of course, the third novel is not at all scary, rather comical, but it remains at the same level of quality as the first two.
All three novels of Thai directors - a kind of "bikes from the crypt", but not the most successful and not the most impressive. You can see that the filmmakers tried to make their ideas “candy”, but what could be scary was replaced by a 3D effect. If the purpose of the almanac is to entertain impressionable teenagers who have never watched horror movies, then congratulations, you succeeded. The rest of the audience has nothing to do here, and the hour of ghosts will never strike for them.
4 out of 10
I adore almanacs, short mini stories with an interesting plot and bright characters, without sagging lines and unnecessary dialogue, easily look in the company of friends in the late evening. I especially like Thai and Japanese almanacs hard, grotesque, sometimes funny, very successful Phobia 1 and 2 parts, Three, Three extremes, and seeing this film I certainly could not pass by.
The first part of The Barber, in the classical traditions of Asia, long hair was everywhere, and they killed everyone who was in the barbershop. The actors, although pretty, only played not very authentically and believably. The end is logical and predictable, the ghost is not as scary as I wanted.
The second part of "The Corpse of the Bride", this part is shocking at once, a young guy settles in the house to care for the corpses of the newlyweds, he must prepare ritual food for offerings, burn incense, make strange injections to the bride. The story is terrible, but not clear, and I was not satisfied with the finale, how the corpses came to life, where the groom went, and why they were not buried. In the end, the idea was not bad, but only very poorly developed.
The third Overtime movie, the most interesting and thoughtful in my opinion, with a good sense of humor and good scary moments. About how a pair of prankster directors want to wean their workers off sitting on Facebook during the day and working overtime at night. The film is great and the ending is really creepy. The best of the three parts.
I will give the film an average rating, since there were many complaints about the first two parts, and only the third part stood out with good humor and original plot.
At the hour of time, at the hour of night, at the hour of silence, at the hour of sinister and wonderful Thailand will cover the darkness with its thick veil. The toothless moon will rock with the skeletons of whitish gums down, and drops of star tears with sweet dew sprinkle the grass. Tonight, the shabby girl will begin to walk her own lust, and moans and screams will be heard from the doorways. The water is transparent, flowing with melted crystal and glowing with fragments of careless broken ice glass, it will be painted with blood - scarlet and velvet. At three o'clock in the morning, the past will come to life, ghosts will rise from their uncomfortable graves. The worst nightmares will come true, and comatose dreams will become amethyst dust. It is the hour of ghosts, the hour of the dead who have come to the soul of the unruly living. And it will hurt, and it will be sweet, and it will be joyful and ugly. Dance macabre. . .
Thai horror, in the form in which it is customary to perceive it now, was born not in the 80-90s of the last century, in contrast to the Hong Kong, which revealed its new face precisely then as the apotheosis of uncensored spectacles of the so-called "third age category", and most recently, at the beginning of the zero, with the advent of the world of directing a number of ambitious directors, like the Pang brothers, who put forward a completely new Thai cinema for some time in the vanguard of the whole of Southeast Asia, Banyeng Pisenekun, Chukayta Szveta, in 2003, with the advent of the choralkai chorija, and the Talas in the extreme chorija chores in the year of the taguera. Moreover, speaking about the development of Thai horror and its evolution, it should be understood that almost all its motifs and themes go back to the root myths of Thailand, and the genre itself froze at the junction of Japanese and South Korean horror dialectics.
No less obvious is the desire of new Thai horror makers to indulge all the newfangled trends of the genre, primarily horror anthologies, gathering under its cinematic roof both young and early, and mature and skillful. Horror-almanac "Hour of Ghosts 3D" in 2012 became, perhaps, one of the most noticeable phenomena in the genre of classic "tale from the crypt", but at the same time, in addition to the exoticity of its production, hardly having anything much more, because this time Isira Nadi and Ko decided not to scare the audience of bloodshed in the whole screen and not to shock the tattooed shaman meat, but to turn their eyes to rather trivial stories about the terrible and beautiful with an extremely transparent moral line.
The opening film novel “The Paric” has a dual plot nature. On the one hand, before the viewer unfolds a leisurely, even somewhat boring story of a difficult relationship between two sisters working as a family contractor in a wig shop. A kind of variation of Cinderella, but with a purely Orientalistic flavor. Much less "Parik" is a horror in view of the fact that, in fact, the whipping of fear and viscous macabra in this trivial kaidan is not expected. The novella is so melancholy, and the dramaturgy in it is so obvious and fresh, that even its finale, which should mark a moral regularity in the development of the theme of retribution for crime and the family crisis that has come to the grave, is devoid of the effect of irredentistic catharsis. Everything is too predictable to be banal for hysterical sisters. To each his own, but a ghost - more important than her long black hair, weaving sinister webs of consciousness.
The ‘Dead Bride’ is virtuoso playing base, being completely different from what it seems from the very beginning. By poetically visualizing necrophilia, the authors of this story do not seek to break taboos, but to show new facets of love. Beginning as a story of attractive insanity, Dead Bride very quickly makes a discourse towards the relationship between sadist and victim, with roles in this family duo alternately changing completely. An innocent lady will become a trivial lady with a scythe, and a boy, admiring the female corpses and loving them fervently and sincerely, will become a hostage of a foreign, still living will.
“Overtime” turn their eyes towards ironic rethinking and postmodern warping of the traditions of horror. The horror here is reduced to the level of ridicule, mockery, avoidance of cliches and clichés, if only because the horror in this novel wears a cassock of moment, buffoon, carnival. Office plankton are looking for new ways to raise adrenaline levels as jokes become more creepy and the real Evil steadily sharpens its knives, saws and pitchforks.
On the output of the almanac "Hour of Ghosts 3D" seems very individual, although, alas, not so original and original product in the horror genre. Unable to really press neither in atmosphericity, nor in stifling nightmares, nor, even more so, in blood-letting cruelty, Isira Nadi and Co. created an almanac that acts out their notes of originality only in the final novel, to which it is necessary to walk through the forest of thick black hair of an ordinary dead girl with a desire for cruel revenge and survived sweet moments of copulation with a corpse, but without necrorealistic boottgeraiteism. Alas, but in the hour of night and in the hour of sinister everything will be as before, that is, boring, boring, faded and your eyelids will close with an endless warm sleep without nightmares and cadavers.
This picture is a mini almanac, consisting of three terrible novels, which, to be honest, will scare you off, but you will not get bored.
We need to start with the fact that the genre is not just a horror film, and there is an admixture of healthy black humor, plus the very vision of the terrible Thai directors is very different from our, for example, brisk naivety.
The first story with chic premises, but in fact it all comes down to a primitive, stereotyped horror about ghosts - she was killed, she takes revenge, however, the idea of a killer wig made me very fun. It is strange that we started with this story, which can disappoint any viewer, but do not rush to finish watching - the further into the forest, the more ghosts there are.
The second story is a mixture of melodrama, quickly transforming into a family drama, then a little necrophilia for a snack, and then a ghostly showdown, where the knot of good intrigue will finally be untied. This is a good story that plays with the viewer, involving him in what is happening, I liked it.
The third story, it is the last one, clearly shows how to motivate your employees with the help of inventive pranks, the main thing is to stop in time, or maybe not start at all?, there are more traditional ways... There is clearly enough dash, everything looks with interest, but there is no possibility to be scared, although this part, for me personally, has become the most curious.
The film will be recommended for viewing, often I watched very bad almanac-horror stories, the same is quite digestible, with some zest, but it will scare only very impressionable people, but I wish it to everyone as well.
Have a good time!
At the hour of time, at the hour of night, at the hour of silence, at the hour of sinister and wonderful Thailand will cover the darkness with its thick veil. The toothless moon will rock with the skeletons of whitish gums down, and drops of star tears with sweet dew sprinkle the grass. Tonight, the shabby girl will begin to walk her own lust, and moans and screams will be heard from the doorways. The water is transparent, flowing with melted crystal and glowing with fragments of careless broken ice glass, it will be painted with blood - scarlet and velvet. At three o'clock in the morning, the past will come to life, ghosts will rise from their uncomfortable graves. The worst nightmares will come true, and comatose dreams will become amethyst dust. It is the hour of ghosts, the hour of the dead who have come to the soul of the unruly living. And it will hurt, and it will be sweet, and it will be joyful and ugly. Dance macabre. . .
Thai horror, in the form in which it is customary to perceive it now, was born not in the 80-90s of the last century, in contrast to the Hong Kong, which revealed its new face precisely then as the apotheosis of uncensored spectacles of the so-called "third age category", and most recently, at the beginning of the zero, with the advent of the world of directing a number of ambitious directors, like the Pang brothers, who put forward a completely new Thai cinema for some time in the vanguard of the whole of Southeast Asia, Banyeng Pisenekun, Chukayta Szveta, in 2003, with the advent of the choralkai chorija, and the Talas in the extreme chorija chores in the year of the taguera. Moreover, speaking about the development of Thai horror and its evolution, it should be understood that almost all its motifs and themes go back to the root myths of Thailand, and the genre itself froze at the junction of Japanese and South Korean horror dialectics.
No less obvious is the desire of new Thai horror makers to indulge all the newfangled trends of the genre, primarily horror anthologies, gathering under its cinematic roof both young and early, and mature and skillful. Horror-almanac "Hour of Ghosts 3D" in 2012 became, perhaps, one of the most noticeable phenomena in the genre of classic "tale from the crypt", but at the same time, in addition to the exoticity of its production, hardly having anything much more, because this time Isira Nadi and Ko decided not to scare the audience of bloodshed in the whole screen and not to shock the tattooed shaman meat, but to turn their eyes to rather trivial stories about the terrible and beautiful with an extremely transparent moral line.
The opening film novel “The Paric” has a dual plot nature. On the one hand, before the viewer unfolds a leisurely, even somewhat boring story of a difficult relationship between two sisters working as a family contractor in a wig shop. A kind of variation of Cinderella, but with a purely Orientalistic flavor. Much less "Parik" is a horror in view of the fact that, in fact, the whipping of fear and viscous macabra in this trivial kaidan is not expected. The novella is so melancholy, and the dramaturgy in it is so obvious and fresh, that even its finale, which should mark a moral regularity in the development of the theme of retribution for crime and the family crisis that has come to the grave, is devoid of the effect of irredentistic catharsis. Everything is too predictable to be banal for hysterical sisters. To each his own, but a ghost - more important than her long black hair, weaving sinister webs of consciousness.
The ‘Dead Bride’ is virtuoso playing base, being completely different from what it seems from the very beginning. By poetically visualizing necrophilia, the authors of this story do not seek to break taboos, but to show new facets of love. Beginning as a story of attractive insanity, Dead Bride very quickly makes a discourse towards the relationship between sadist and victim, with roles in this family duo alternately changing completely. An innocent lady will become a trivial lady with a scythe, and a boy, admiring the female corpses and loving them fervently and sincerely, will become a hostage of a foreign, still living will.
“Overtime” turn their eyes towards ironic rethinking and postmodern warping of the traditions of horror. The horror here is reduced to the level of ridicule, mockery, avoidance of cliches and clichés, if only because the horror in this novel wears a cassock of moment, buffoon, carnival. Office plankton are looking for new ways to raise adrenaline levels as jokes become more creepy and the real Evil steadily sharpens its knives, saws and pitchforks.
On the output of the almanac "Hour of Ghosts 3D" seems very individual, although, alas, not so original and original product in the horror genre. Unable to really press neither in atmosphericity, nor in stifling nightmares, nor, even more so, in blood-letting cruelty, Isira Nadi and Co. created an almanac that acts out its notes of originality only in the final novel, to which it is necessary to walk through the forest of thick black hair of an ordinary dead girl with a desire for cruel revenge and survived sweet moments of copulation with a corpse, but without necrorealistic boottgeraiteism. Alas, but in the hour of night and in the hour of sinister everything will be as before, that is, boring, boring, faded and your eyelids will close with an endless warm sleep without nightmares and cadavers.
6 out of 10
Three mystical stories connected by the same motive - do not disturb the dead, because you can anger them. Three o'clock in the morning is a time when the worlds of ghosts and ordinary people intertwine, and the exit for otherworldly forces becomes open. Stories, although united by one idea, but in their content are not the same.
The plot "Parik" tells us about a rather cute atelier worker who takes care of her hair and makes them wigs and her four friends that literally break in late at night without asking her for work. They behave extremely defiantly, mock the wigs of the deceased, until at three in the morning something strange begins to happen. In this story, the introductory part seemed to me too long, although the acting does not cause any complaints.
Events "Weddings" develop in the lonely home of a middle-aged couple in love, which ... rests in the world of the dead! The duties of the hero of this part include the care of the dead and their home. However, a terrible secret that once took place within the walls of this building once again breaks out. This story surprises not so much with its mystical component, but with the behavior of our hero, which becomes a real necrophile! You can hardly look at it without disgust. Almost only the final part causes fear, while the main timekeeping of the “Weddings” the hero rushes around the house, moving the corpse from place to place.
I especially liked the third part - "overtime". It is literally full of pranks and their horrifying impressions from the first minutes. This is not a simple series of funny “deaths”, but also natural deaths. How do they relate to each other? is a puzzle, a shocking answer to which we will know only at the very end. This part seemed to me the most powerful not only in genre, but also in acting, a masterfully intricate plot, literally blowing the viewer’s brains.
Three stories, three horrors, three in the morning. In fact, I would classify each of them in three different genres. If the first - quite reminiscent of horror, the second - a kind of Gothic thriller, then in the final clearly visible and ironic notes. Now with pleasure watch the next part of “Ghost Hour 2” – three new stories about the world of the living and the world of the dead from the same directors.
In general, Ghost Hour is a good movie for those who like to spend time late at night in front of the screen. It can tickle nerves, although it belongs to the level of middle peasants. For fans of the genre, to whom I consider myself, the film will be useful in that it gives an opportunity to assess the level of production of horror films in Thailand, and at the same time and relax from the avalanche of American and Japanese horror films that literally flooded the world cinema with the products of this genre and set the tone in it.
7 out of 10
Horror films from Southeast Asian countries are quite a spectacle. There are no rivers of blood, blatant cruelty and details of sadistic torture, but it is sometimes funny, sometimes naive, with a peculiar understanding of the specifics of this genre and acting, which can be mistaken for ordinary curves. Payback Hour is a Thai horror film consisting of three unrelated short films, united only by the common theme of ghosts and their appearance in the world of the living at a certain time of day.
The first novel tells the story of a small wig shop, where one day the hair from the head of a drowned girl is delivered. The restless spirit of the girl appears at night and begins to hunt the two sisters who remain for the main ones in the store and their acquaintances. It turned out to be a very sluggish, boring action, in which they tried to scare us with rare shots of a greenish hand stretching somewhere into the space. To classify this part in the genre of horror, in the usual sense of the word, it is possible only with a large amount of stretch.
The second novel tells us about a strange family that hires the boy to keep in good condition, to monitor and care for the bodies of the deceased newlyweds (and even bring food to their coffins), for some reason not buried, but left by relatives in storage in the bedroom of the house in which the couple planned to live after the honeymoon. In the process of fulfilling his professional duties, the young man falls in love with the bride and even begins to have regular sex with her, which makes watching this series frankly unpleasant. If the first novel, although with reservations, can be called horrors, then the second part to this genre has nothing to do, much closer to her genre of mysticism. At least, the plot, which tells about the possession of people by spirits and demons, has this in mind. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of here, except to demonstrate the twisted personal life of the main character. This part is as empty and uninteresting as the first. Although it is worth noting that the actors involved not only in this part, but in the whole film, play, fully committed to their duties, and make a very pleasant impression, especially given how much the representatives of Southeast Asia like to overplay and crook in front of the camera.
I had no special illusions about the level of the third novel, after the mediocre first two, and it was all the more pleasant to note that the third part, although not without flaws, turned out to be quite interesting and with a number of unexpected plot twists. And the characters are more charismatic and charming than in other parts. Quite cruel, but original play each other, the characters do not suspect that not all of them are already alive. Within twenty minutes, suspicion shifts from one character to another, and only in the end does it become clear who is a person and who is no longer. This part noticeably brightened up the impression of the whole film with intrigue and pleasant characters.
In general, the “Hour of Ghosts” is not suitable for demonstration in cinemas in Western countries, since what can scare and intrigue the Thai, at best, the European will cause a smile. This film is able to diversify leisure only if you are already tired of the same type of American horror films and want to refresh and reboot your consciousness, a rather unusual and slightly exotic spectacle, which, however, is not able to scare even a very impressionable person.
Quite a strange idea of the genre of “horrors” in Thais. All three stories shot to scare the viewer I personally caused a smile.
Incredibly predictable plot at the first horror story with the wig of a drowned woman, cutting children with her hand stained in green. Just think about it – a killer wig!
In the second story, we are shown necrophilia, which is more disgusting in a healthy person than fear or other emotions. It is not clear how the corpses came to life, although there is much that is not clear, as if the writer and director were aiming at an art house, not considering it necessary to explain to the viewer.
In the third part, she completely overdid with trick-pocus and vengeful spirits of former employees of the company, in the office of which joke bosses mocked the subordinate staff.
In general, I can add that the techniques with a stretching hand, eager to grab our Thai heroes wandered from history to history, and wildly screaming characters on the screen sometimes even outplayed their animal fear, which even more amused me as a viewer.
The film is recommended for viewing only those who independently want to evaluate the result of Asian cinema, as well as the category of people who decided to master the genre of Horror, but are afraid to start with really creepy things.